Volleyball Advances With Thrilling Five-Set win Over Houston

Friday, November 22

Orlando, Fla.

5 PM

Tulane University

21-9,10-6AAC

Houston

16-16,10-6AAC

Tulane

Houston

Photo by: Doug DeFelice

Volleyball Advances With Thrilling Five-Set win Over Houston

Nov 22, 2019 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

ORLANDO, Fla. – After having the first two matches of the season come down to thrilling endings, it was only fitting that Tulane and Houston would play another classic in the inaugural American Athletic Conference Volleyball Championship day one finale, with the Green Wave saving its best for last in a 25-18, 16-25, 22-25, 25-17, 15-6 victory Friday at The Venue at UCF.

After dropping the third set in which they had a sizeable lead midway through, Tulane (21-9) was forced to rally and did by playing solid defense and getting the scoring runs it needed to see out the match and advance to Saturday's semifinal.

"I was proud of our game plan and the way we were executing it. Then when we lost our serve-receive was when we let Houston back into it. But once we started passing like we could it was really great to see our team really start to dominate," head coach Jim Barnes said.

Junior Lexie Douglas led all players with 18 kills, earning her 12^th double-double of the year with a team-high 19 digs. Kayla Dinkins hit a blistering .429 with 11 kills and four blocks. Yvette Burcescu had 10 kills, three blocks and a dig, while Lizzy Stefanov had nine kills, three digs and a block.

Amanda Giardina had 25 assists for the Green Wave, while adding eight digs and a service ace, while Jenna Ibieta had 19 assists, seven digs and a kill. Senior Kaylie McHugh earned her second double-double of the season with 16 digs and 10 assists in the win for the Green Wave.

Both teams were ready for the challenge early in the first set, leading to four ties within the first eight points of the match, with the Cougars going on top briefly 5-4. However from there the Green Wave rattled off three consecutive points to go up 7-5 and put Houston on the back foot.

Three points seemed to be the magic number for Tulane in the set, as kills from Douglas and a Houston attacking error pushed the lead to 14-11, with a kill from Kristen Thompson making it 15-12 at the first media break of the match. Thompson bookended a 5-0 run with kills that forced the Cougars into a timeout trailing the Green Wave 19-12 in the opening set.

Tulane pushed its lead to its largest up 21-13, weathering a late rally from Houston to take the first set 25-18.

Houston was able to rebound by getting out to a hot start in the second set scoring seven of the first nine points, backed by a pair of service aces to force the Green Wave into using their first timeout of the day down 7-2.

Tulane was forced to battle for the rest of the set, and every time it seemed like the Wave would string together a couple of points, Houston found a way to push the divide between the two even further, to the point where the Cougars were comfortably in control and went on to take the second set 25-16.

After the intermission the Green Wave jumped out to a solid start taking six of the first eight points to go on top 6-2 early. A kill from Giardina on the misdirection got the Green Wave to double figure points first leading the Cougars 10-7.

Houston to its credit made things pretty interesting and claimed three of the next four points to pull to within a pair of points at 11-9, but a 6-0 run for the Green Wave after that pushed Tulane out front to a 17-9 lead to ease the pressure at that moment. Houston didn't make things easy and outscored the Green Wave 8-2 to force the team into using both of their timeouts leading 19-17.

The Cougars pounced and soon enough Houston found themselves in the midst of a 16-5 run to close out the third set and go up 2-1 in the match with the 25-22 set victory.

Once again, the Green Wave were able to jump out to another solid lead, earning eight of the first 11 points to go up 8-3 over the Cougars. But just like it was in the third set, Houston found a way to keep things close and Tulane went into the media timeout only leading by five at 15-10.

A bad set for Houston out of the timeout made it 16-10 Tulane, but the next three went the Cougars' way to make it a 16-13 lead for the Green Wave. Tulane netted four of the next six and Houston was forced to call a timeout trailing 20-15 in the fourth.

Tulane pulled the first two points out of the break, and from there Houston wouldn't be able to make a game out of it and the Green Wave sent the match to the fifth with a 25-17 win.

Houston got the first point of the fifth, but not before a kill from Lauryn Green and a block from Green and Burcescu made it 2-1 Green Wave. After Houston took two of the next three to make it 3-3, Tulane scored the next three to go up 6-3.

Dinkins scored a kill and made it 8-5 as the two sides switched positions and continued play, getting a kill from Burcescu, attack error from Houston and blast from Douglas to use a 4-0 run making the score 11-5 and forcing the Cougars into a timeout.

Tulane did what it needed to do, and Houston was out of tricks. The Green Wave stormed to the finish and closed out the set by outscoring Houston 8-1 and claiming the fifth set 15-6.

"Going into the season we knew we could win the league. We've had to deal with some situations injury-wise but this team is determined to continue for that goal," Barnes said. "Cincinnati is in front of us and we'll be ready to play tomorrow."

The Green Wave advance to take on top seed Cincinnati in the semifinals of the 2019 American Athletic Conference Volleyball Championship Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CT at The Venue at UCF.

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

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