Volleyball Season Concludes on Senior Day With a Loss to Xavier

Sunday, November 13

McGonigle Hall

12:30 PM

Temple University

8-20, 4-11 A-10

Xavier (Senior Day)

19-10, 11-4 A-10

Xavier

Temple

Seniors and their families with Athletics Director Bill Bradshaw, Associate AD Kristen Foley and Head Coach Bakeer Ganes

Volleyball Season Concludes on Senior Day With a Loss to Xavier

11.13.11 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Owls, who honored three seniors prior to the match, finish with double the wins from a year ago

Box Score (PDF) l Senior Day Presentation (Video)

PHILADELPHIA - Despite an impressive comeback in the third set that closed a seven-point gap, the Temple volleyball team could not get a lead as the Owls lost in three sets to Xavier on Senior Day. The Musketeers (19-10, 11-4) won by scores of 25-17, 25-19 and 25-22 as the Owls' season ended with an overall record of 8-20 and an Atlantic 10 record of 4-11.

Temple honored its three seniors prior to the match, as Liz Prang, Rikia Trischuk and Collin Wallace played for the final time as Owls.

"First of all, I want to thank the seniors for the contributions to Temple volleyball, and to our Athletics Department and Temple University," said head coach Bakeer Ganes. "They gave their heart and soul throughout their careers here at Temple. They were always great ambassadors of our program, and they always will be. They're great individuals with great character, and I know whatever they end up doing in their lives, they'll be successful.

"I want to thank everybody who was involved in making our season such a successful campaign, especially the support staff. We're very excited about the upcoming season and are looking forward to getting started soon. Hopefully next season we're going to get the same support from the student body and everybody who attended our matches this year."

Elyse Burkert led Temple with 10 kills in the match, and Chelsea Tupuola led the Owls with 13 digs. Wallace recorded seven kills and 10 digs in her final match. Tiffany Connatser was close to a double-double with 21 assists and nine digs.

Leading Xavier was Ame White with 10 kills and zero errors. The Musketeers got nine kills apiece from Alex Smith and Kelsey Dunaway, while libero Kaleigh Rougraff led all players with 18 digs.

Xavier used an efficient attack to take an early lead in the first set and hold it all the way through, as six players recorded two or more kills and the team as a whole finished with 17 kills and only three errors in the set. Temple got five kills from Matautia and four from Burkert, but could not close the gap on the Musketeers. Midway through the set the Owls used a four-point run to narrow the margin to five, but could come no closer as Xavier won the set, 25-17.

The second set was a disappointing loss for the Owls, who led for much of the way. Temple's lead was three points on three occasions, the last at 17-14 before a 5-0 Xavier run turned things around in favor of the Musketeers.

Temple made the third set very interesting after being down 22-15, rattling off seven straight points to tie the score at 22-22. Matautia knocked down kills for three straight points during that run, prompting a Xavier timeout. The comeback unfortunately came to a halt for the Owls as Xavier's Sarah Brown hit back-to-back kills to put the Musketeers up 24-22, and an error on Temple was the final nail in the coffin as Xavier took the set and the match.

Temple doubled its wins in 2011 from the four it earned in 2010, and won three more matches in conference play as well. With five of six starters returning for 2012 along with their starting libero, the Owls look good for continuing on the road to even further success next season.