Volleyball Wins Sixth Straight With a 3-0 Sweep of Fordham; Owls Now 12-4 Overall and 2-0 in the Atlantic 10

Saturday, September 22

McGonigle Hall

7:00 PM

Temple University

12-4, 2-0 A-10

Fordham

9-11, 1-1 A-10

Fordham

Temple

Gabriella Matautia led Temple with 13 kills and 13 digs in a 3-0 win over Fordham

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Volleyball Wins Sixth Straight With a 3-0 Sweep of Fordham; Owls Now 12-4 Overall and 2-0 in the Atlantic 10

9.22.12 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA - It was the ninth sweep of the season and sixth straight win for Temple volleyball as the Owls got a 3-0 win over visiting Fordham on Saturday night at McGonigle Hall. Winning by scores of 25-20, 25-12 and 25-17, Temple improves to 12-4 overall and 2-0 in the Atlantic 10, continuing to have their best start to a season since 2002.

"We really did not want to start slow and have to get back out of a hole tonight," said head coach Bakeer Ganes, "so it was important for us to start off with high intensity and high energy. I thought overall we did a pretty good job of that. When it counted at the end we increased the speed a little bit and got away from them."

Gabriella Matautia led the Owls, recording one of three double-doubles for the team with 13 kills and 13 digs. Elyse Burkert tallied 10 kills along with 10 digs, and Tiffany Connatser added 15 digs to her 34 assists. Chelsea Tupuola led all players with 16 digs in the win. Others hit well for the Owls including Jingyu Zhang with nine kills and just one error.

"I really liked the mental focus I saw today," said Ganes. "That's a big improvement for us as a team. This weekend was really good for this team and also for this program after what we've been going through the last couple years. To come in and have a strong performance in conference play is great. Now we have to turnaround and get ready for next weekend. We've been breaking down film on Xavier and Dayton and now we'll focus on the things we need to do to compete and have a shot against them. Regardless of the wins we've had, we are still the underdog in the A-10 and that's how we are approaching every match."

The first set was tight until near the end, with seven ties and four lead changes. The Owls let one lead slip away, as the Rams tied the set at 16-16 after trailing 15-11. Fordham was within a point at 20-19 before Temple scored five of the final six points to take the set. Matautia started the run with back-to-back kills, and Fordham's own errors cost the Rams the final three points.

Matautia picked up where she left off, knocking down six kills in the second set after finishing with five in the first. Temple hit .250 compared to .070 for Fordham in the second set, and led most of the way after an early 4-4 tie. The Owls led by double digits at 18-7 after a 9-1 run, and cruised from there. Temple served up four aces in the second set alone, each coming from a different player.

Temple's lead was not quite as strong through the third set, but still solid most of the way. The Owls hit .324 to Fordham's .205, keeping the errors to a minimum as they did most of the match.

The Owls will face two more tough conference opponents next weekend at home, Xavier and Dayton. First up is a 7:00 p.m. match against Xavier on Friday, Sept. 28.