Volleyball Falls in a Five-Set Battle at Rhode Island

Sunday, October 21

Kingston, R.I.

1:00 PM

Temple University

15-8, 5-4 A-10

Rhode Island

8-14, 4-5 A-10

Temple

Rhode Island

Chelsea Tupuola

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Volleyball Falls in a Five-Set Battle at Rhode Island

10.21.12 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

KINGSTON, R.I. – The second five-set match in as many contests for Temple volleyball did not go the way of the first for the Owls, who lost 3-2 on the road at Rhode Island on Sunday afternoon.

Temple (15-8, 5-4) won the first set 25-18 before losing 25-20 in the second and 30-28 in the third. The Owls took the fourth set 25-22, but the Rams (8-14, 4-5) recovered for a 15-10 win in the final set.

Having a second impressive outing in a row for Temple was Gabriella Matautia, who followed up her career-high 30-kill performance of the other day with 25 kills to go with 20 digs at Rhode Island. Elyse Burkert added 18 digs to her 15 kills on the day, while Tiffany Connatser also had a double-double with 18 digs to go with 49 assists.

Chelsea Tupuola led all players with 29 digs, while Jingyu Zhang recorded 14 of Temple's 100 digs in the match. Jennifer Iacobini had a solid match with nine kills, three aces and four blocks.

"This was a very tough match," said head coach Bakeer Ganes. "We started out very well and were really in rhythm. We kept the tempo high and the executivon was very clean. It was probably one of the best first sets we've played all season long. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep that cleanness throughout the rest of the match.

"Overall, we just could have executed better and made fewer errors. It was disappointing at this stage, but it was not for lack of effort or because of attitude. The girls came out and gave great effort, which they do day in and day out, and I'm very fortunate to have a group of players like that. It gives me confidence that whatever didn't go right for us today we will be able to fix and come out as a better team for it."

Temple looked strong throughout an easy win in the first set, leading by as many as eight before winning 25-18. Annemarie Boehm set up set-point with a kill, and Tupuola served up an ace to give Temple a 1-0 lead in the match.

The second set went the opposite way for the Owls as the Rams took a big lead early, and were up as many as nine at 18-9.
Temple battled back down the stretch to come within three points at 22-19, but Rhode Island put down kills on three of the final four points to even the match at 1-1.

The third set was the closest of the match with 16 ties. The score stayed especially tight towards the end, but it was Temple that had the first three chances to put the set away. Each time the Rams got either a kill or a block, and then had two set-points of their own that were fought off by Temple as the Owls got kills from Iacobini and Matautia.

Finally an error on Temple gave Rhode Island a third set point at 29-28, and Britta Baarstad knocked down the set-winning kill for the Rams.

The teams continued to battle in the fourth set, which was tied as late as 22-22 before a Matautia kill was followed by consecutive errors on the Rams, setting up the decisive fifth set.

Rhode Island jumped ahead early in the fifth set, leading 10-3 before the Owls began to find their stride. Temple rallied to within three points at 11-8 and 12-9, but two kills for Baarstad gave URI a 14-9 lead and the Owls were able to fend off only one set point before the Rams won with a kill.

After playing its last four matches on the road, Temple returns home next weekend for matches against VCU and Charlotte. First up is VCU for the Owls' “Dig Pink” match on Friday, Oct. 26 at 7:00 p.m.