Volleyball Goes Undefeated on Day One of the Temple Invitational With Wins Over Central Connecticut State and Navy

Friday, September 14

McGonigle Hall

4:00 PM

Temple University

8-4

Central Connecticut

5-6

Central Connecticut

Temple

Jingyu Zhang and Chelsea Tupuola

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Volleyball Goes Undefeated on Day One of the Temple Invitational With Wins Over Central Connecticut State and Navy

9.14.12 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

PHILADELPHIA - With a 3-1 win over Central Connecticut State and a 3-0 sweep of Navy, the Temple volleyball team went undefeated on day one of its own Temple Invitational. Jingyu Zhang knocked down 18 kills as the Owls rallied for a 3-1 win over CCSU (5-6), and Gabriella Matautia led Temple (9-4) with 14 kills in its sweep of the Navy Midshipmen (3-8).

With a 9-4 overall record, the Owls have now surpassed their win total from 2011 and still have 15 matches left to play in the regular season. Temple is enjoying its best start since 2002 when the Owls advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

The Owls lost the first set against CCSU, 25-13, but won the next three by scores of 25-21, 25-19 and 25-19. Despite only an hour and a half to cool down and warm up before playing Navy, Temple didn't miss a beat and won 25-21, 25-20 and 25-23.

Zhang had her best performance of the season in the first match, and was particulary effective in the third set with seven kills and just one error. She also came up with nine digs in the win. Elyse Burkert recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 17 kills and 11 digs.

Chelsea Tupuola tied her career high with 34 digs, while Tiffany Connatser also notched a double-double with 48 assists and 12 digs. Gabriella Matautia had Temple's third double-double performance with 11 kills and 10 digs. Matautia also led the team with five blocks in the win.

Tupuola was impressive again in the back row against Navy with a match-high 23 digs. Zhang recorded eight kills in the second match and Burkert had nine.

Temple came out sluggish in the first set against CCSU and trailed from the get-go as the Blue Devils won easily. Fortunately for the Owls, they were able to turn things around in a tight second set. The 12th tie of the set came at 21-21 before Burkert took over, getting kills on three of the final four points in a 4-0 Temple run to close out the set.

The third set saw Zhang get a string of four kills in five points midway through as Temple took the lead and held it for the remainder of the set.

"Jing was the reason we won the third set," said Temple head coach Bakeer Ganes. "She was the MVP of this match. She plays like that in practice, but this was the first time she put it together in a match at this level. I'm glad she was able to step it up and be that person we can rely on."

The Owls ended up needing a huge comeback in the fourth set, but they rose to the challenge. Central Connecticut State led 18-13 before the Owls began to rally and scored nine straight points to put the set out of reach for the Blue Devils. Connatser served for Temple through the run as a number of Owls contributed to the rally. With a 22-19 lead, Burkert, Zhang and Matautia each recorded a kill in final three points to give the Owls the set and the match.

"It was really up to them to kind of go back to the basics (after the first set)," said Ganes. "I just told them to talk each other, move your feet, get your body in position. Just basic things. It's a simple game. That's what I talked about to them, and that was the key that allowed us to get back into the match."

Matautia and Burkert knocked down six kills apiece in leading the Owls to a 25-21 win in the first set over Navy. As a team, Temple recorded 17 kills with just three errors in 40 attempts for a hitting percentage of .350. The Mids had an early lead but after a 16-16 tie, the Owls took a lead and never relinquished it.

The second set featured big runs by both teams, but Temple built a big enough lead to withstand a comeback attempt by Navy. With an 11-7 advantage, Temple rattled off seven straight points for an 18-7 lead. The Mids would later come within four, 23-19, but a kill from Caitlin McMillen gave the Owls set point. Two plays later, an error on Navy ended the set as Temple took a 2-0 lead in the match.

There were 10 ties in a third-set battle, and this time it was Temple that needed to rally. The Owls were down 12-6 before eventually tying the match at 14-14 after an 8-2 run. Temple trailed again at 20-18 before there were ties at 21, 22 and 23. Tupuola kept a couple of extremely hard-hit Navy attacks alive, and Jennifer Iacobini came up with the set-winning kill after a service error had given the Owls set-point.

"In our second match today, we wanted to spread out our offense a little bit to help fight fatigue," said Ganes. "The game plan was to get sets to different people and we were able to do that. Gabby did a good job (against Navy) and what was great to see was that she improved from set to set."

Temple will conclude tournament play in Saturday's final match against Cornell at 5:00 p.m. There will be two matches in McGonigle prior to that one, with the action getting started at 10:00 a.m. between CCSU and Cornell.