Tulane University
Memphis
Volleyball Falls In Three To American Athletic Conference Foe Memphis
Nov 16, 2014 | Women's Volleyball
Tulane/Memphis Box Score In PDF Format 
For the Tulane University volleyball team, it was case of both as the Green Wave dropped a 3-0 decision (25-14, 25-19, 25-22) to American Athletic Conference foe Memphis on Sunday afternoon at the Elma Roane Fieldhouse. Despite eight of the 10 student-athletes seeing action against the Tigers being either freshmen or sophomores, the Green Wave (5-23, 3-13 American) showed steady improvement as the match moved along. The difference, however, was the overall experience of the Memphis team (21-9, 11-5 American) which featured four juniors and a pair of seniors.
"Obviously, we're young, don't have great experience and we play very up and down at a lot of difference positions as a result," Tulane head coach Sinisa Momic said. "That was definitely the case today. At the positions where we're supposed to put our game together, we weren't able to perform at a high enough level - especially when our passing breaks down."
Tulane underclassmen accounted for 93.3 percent of the team's assists (28-of-30), 87.2 percent of the digs (41-of-47), 84.4 percent of the kills (27-of-32), 80.0 percent of the blocks (4-of-5) and 66.7 percent of the service aces (2-of-3). While Memphis had its share of freshmen and sophomores on the court, 97.6 percent of the Tigers' assists (40-of-41), 66.7 percent of the aces (4-of-6), 60.0 percent of the blocks (3.0-of-5.0), 55.1 percent of the digs (27-of-49) and 50.0 percent of the kills (21-of-42) came from student-athletes with at least two years of collegiate experience under their collective belts.
Sophomore Tea Juric was one of just two players to post double-figure kill totals on Sunday and led the Green Wave with 10. Freshman Sarah Ray was next for Tulane offensively with seven kills and paced the squad with 14 digs and a pair of service aces. Sophomore setter Lauren Etta led the Wave with 14 assists, while fellow sophomore Ally Frank added nine, and sophomore libero Miah Diirell joined Ray in the double-digit dig club with 13. Sophomore middle blocker Sarah Strasner, meanwhile, paced the Green Wave defense with three blocks (1 solo, 3 assists).
"We tried both setters - Ally and Lauren - to put together an offense that would work consistently, but it didn't happen," Momic said. "We're trying to get better and we are getting better. We just didn't perform at a high enough level either because of the experience or knowing what it takes to compete in volleyball at the Division I level."
Tulane got off to solid start in the opening set, led 6-3 early on and sat tied with the Tigers at 8-all after 16 serves. From there, however, Memphis rattled off five-consecutive points and ended the frame on a 15-7 run to come away with an 11-point win.
The Tigers' strong finish carried over the second stanza as Memphis scored four of the first five points and led by as many as nine at 16-7 midway through the set. Tulane cut the deficit to three at 17-14, 18-15 and 19-16, but could get no closer as Memphis tallied six of the final nine points to take a two-sets-to-none lead heading into the break.
Following intermission, Memphis appeared ready for a runaway as the Tigers scored the first two points and held a 10-point lead at 20-12. The Green Wave refused to go away quietly and used a 10-4 rally to make it a two-point game at 24-22. A Tulane attack error, however, thwarted the comeback attempt as Memphis was able to complete the sweep.
"We kind of managed to come back in set three, but we were not able to play at the level we did most of match on Friday [at Cincinnati]," Momic added. "We weren't playing a good enough level or even the level we are capable of playing. That was really what it came down to."
Memphis' Alexis Wesley tied Juric for match-high kill honors with 10 to lead the home team, and the Tigers also got nine kills from Kate Gibson, eight from Oluchi Agomuo and seven from Torika Baleilekutu. Veronica Zimmerman led Memphis with a match-best 37 assists as did Aleksanda Petronijevic in digs with 18. Wesley paced the Tigers' front-line defense with three block assists.
The Green Wave return to action on Friday, Nov. 21, when they play host to UCF at 7 p.m. in Devlin Fieldhouse before closing out the home portion of the 2014 campaign on Sunday, Nov. 23, against Temple. Prior to the Temple match, Tulane will honor its senior class of defensive specialist Grace Weaver and middle blocker Anna Wruck with a special ceremony.
For ticket information to those matches, as well as future Green Wave events, contact the Tulane Athletics Ticket Office. The ticket office is located on the first floor of the James W. Wilson, Jr., Center and is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For additional information, call (504) 861-WAVE (9283) or log onto the internet at www.TulaneGreenWave.com.
