Volleyball Falls in Close Battle to UCF in Four Sunday

Sunday, October 27

Orlando, FL

12 PM

Tulane University

16-7,6-4AAC

UCF

15-7,8-2AAC

Tulane

UCF

Photo by: Parker Waters

Volleyball Falls in Close Battle to UCF in Four Sunday

Oct 27, 2019 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

ORLANDO, Fla. – On Sunday, the Tulane volleyball team proved it was up to the challenge of competing at the host site of the league's first-ever conference tournament in a month's time, but the UCF Knights had just enough to hold serve on their home court and defeat the Green Wave in four sets 25-19, 25-20, 18-25, 25-17.

The Green Wave (16-7, 6-4 The American) hit .232 in the match with 57 kills on 54 assists, with 60 digs and seven team blocks. UCF (16-6, 9-1) hit .259 and had 56 kills and 12 blocks as a group.

Freshman Lauryn Green finished the match hitting .500 with 11 kills on 20 swings, leading the team with six blocks. Lexie Douglas earned a double-double with 10 kills and 12 digs, while Kayla Dinkins hit .556 with 10 kills and a block.

Taylor Henigsman finished the day with 25 assists and three digs, while Amanda Giardina had 22 assists and nine digs. Kaylie McHugh finished with 17 digs and four assists.

The first set resembled more of a heavyweight fight, with both the Green Wave and Knights providing lots of fireworks throughout the duration of the opening frame Sunday afternoon. Tulane and UCF played to 10 ties and two lead changes through the first 33 points of the match, with both sides running high-octane offenses and solid defense.

With the set tied at 15-15, UCF hit into an error at the net to give the Green Wave the 16-15 advantage. However, the Knights got the next two points and another after a Tulane timeout to go up 18-16. While the team would be able to trade points with UCF after that to make it a 20-19 game, the home side pulled away by scoring the final five points of the match to take the set 25-19.

The first set was just a prelude to even more of a back-and-forth affair that was the second, featuring 16 ties through nearly the entirety of the stanza between the Knights and Green Wave. Offensively, it was a show as UCF finished the set hitting .500, while Tulane hit .351.

The Knights opened the set by earning four of the first six points, but Tulane responded by getting a kill from Green, and back-to-back blocks from Makala Heidelberg and Green to go up 5-4 and take the lead. From there, Tulane would play on the front foot for much of the rest of the frame from there, weathering UCF points to hold the upper hand.

After a kill from Dinkins to make the score 15-14 in favor of Tulane, UCF earned a pair of points to go up 16-15 and force Tulane into a timeout. Dinkins came out of the break with another kill to tie the set at 16-all, as Tulane continued to knot the match three more times after that until another Knight two-point swing forced the team to call another time out down 19-21.

Douglas put one away to pull Tulane within one, but that would be the final point for the group for the rest of the set as UCF closed out with a 4-0 run to take a 2-0 lead with the 25-20 set victory.

Tulane switched some things up and it worked in the third, getting an injection of energy as the squad jumped out in a big way early. A kill from Dinkins capped a 5-2 run to open the set. While the Knights took two of the next three, the Green Wave got a kill from Dinkins, UCF attack error and kill from Kristen Thompson to force UCF into a timeout leading 9-4.

The Knights had no answer for the Wave attack, and instead of looking to keep the game close UCF was just trying to find anything to get handfuls of points. Tulane, going on a 6-4 run to go up 20-14 forced the Knights into their final timeout of the set, as the Green Wave forced a fourth set by winning the third 25-18.

Tulane looked to take that momentum into the fourth, but UCF came out a different team in the fourth set and used that newfound energy to its advantage and outscored the Green Wave 6-2 to start, before eventually using a 7-0 run to force Tulane into using both of their timeouts down 14-6.

With the lead for the opposition sitting at 20-11, Tulane refused to give up and earned five of the next six points, capped by a Thompson and Green block to cut the deficit to 21-16 and force the Knights into a timeout.

The run would be enough to keep things close, but UCF saw things out in the end winning four of the last five points to close the match with a 25-17 win in the fourth.

Tulane will be back in action next weekend, hosting the Wichita State Shockers Friday night at 7 p.m. inside Fogelman in Devlin.

Single-game tickets for the 2019 season can be purchased by calling 504-861-WAVE (9283), logging into TulaneTix.com or visiting the ticket office at the James W. Wilson Jr. Center.

Follow Tulane volleyball on social media at @GreenWaveVB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Follow Tulane Athletics on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

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