Volleyball Celebrates Senior Night by Topping Houston

Friday, November 28

McGonigle Hall

7:00 PM

Temple University

24-8, 15-5

Houston

14-18, 6-14

Houston

Temple

Volleyball Celebrates Senior Night by Topping Houston

11.28.14 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA - The Temple volleyball team celebrated senior night with a 3-1 (23-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-16) win over Houston on Friday night at McGonigle Hall. The Owls closed out the conference season with a 15-5 mark, improving to 24-8 overall, marking the best record since the 2002 season (29-7). Following the match, Temple honored the three senior members of the team, Tiffany Connatser, Jennifer Iacobini, and Alex Schmitt.

Head Coach Bakeer Ganes was happy his team was able to end on a high note. "It means a lot, we wanted to finish the season strong. It's a very long season and it's not just physically draining, but also mentally draining," he noted. "We were really comitted to push through, to make sure we finished on a high note because we had a great season. We also wanted to make sure to give a good farewell to our seniors."

Freshman Dara Peric led the Owl attack with 15 kills, while Iacobini and sophomore Tyler Davis each added 11. Iacobini closed out her career by adding four blocks and a pair of aces, while Davis picked up 14 digs for a double-double. Junior Sandra Sydlik notched a double-double with 43 assists and 10 digs, while also adding five kills. Freshman Izzy Rapacz finished with eight kills while sophomore Kirsten Overton had a match-high seven blocks. Defensively, juniors Alyssa Drachslin and Kayla Yingling ended the night with 18 and 16 digs respectively.

Temple got off to a slow start, combining for 17 errors in a split of the first two sets. The Owls hit just .100 in the first set, but led 17-15 late. Houston scored the next three points off of Temple attack errors to go up 19-17. The Owls got within one at 22-21 on a Davis kill, and then spoiled match point for Houston twice, but the Cougars came away with the 25-23 win.

The Owls scored the first six points of the second set, and went up 12-5 after three straight Houston errors. Temple held a 16-11 lead before five-straight Cougar points, including two service aces tied the match at 16-16. Houston took over the lead with a 4-2 run, going up 20-18, but Temple rebounded and closed out the frame with a 6-2 surge, taking the set, 25-23.

Temple hit over .300 in each of the remaining sets, to close out the victory. In the third, the Owls held a slim 7-6 lead early, before a long serving run with Davis on the line pushed the advantage to 15-6. Houston got no closer than eight points the rest of the way as Temple grabbed the commanding 25-16 victory.

The Owls closed out the final set with another solid hitting performance. The early part of the match stayed close, with neither team leading by more than three points. With Houston leading 11-10, Temple scored the next 12 points of the set to break open a 22-11 advantage. The teams traded sideouts to close the match, with the Owls sealing the win on a Rapacz kill that made it 25-14 in the set, and 3-1 in the match.

Ganes noticed an improvement in the team's transition movement and serving in the latter part of today's match. "I think the transition movement was much better," he said. "The other thing that really pick up for us was our serving. I thought our serving in the first set wasn't good, but it really picked up at the end of set two and after that, and that's a major part of our game."

Box Score (PDF) | Post-Match Interviews