Volleyball Rally Falls Just Short in a Five-Set Loss to Boston College

Friday, September 12

Brooklyn, N.Y.

4:30 PM

Temple University

6-1

Boston College

4-3

Boston College

Temple

Kirsten Overton

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Volleyball Rally Falls Just Short in a Five-Set Loss to Boston College

9.12.14 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Box Score (PDF)

BROOKLYN - After coming back from two sets down, Temple volleyball fell just short in a 3-2 loss to Boston College (4-3) as the Eagles handed the Owls (6-1) their first loss of the season at the LIU Blackbird Invitational. Temple gritted out a 31-29 win in the third set to stay alive, but ultimately lost 16-14 in the final set.

Boston College took the first two sets by scores of 25-18 and 25-17 before the Owls hung on in the third. Temple came all the way back with a 25-21 fourth-set victory.

"We had a really good chance to win this match," said Temple head coach Bakeer Ganes, "but we just missed a couple of plays. That happens. We made great plays to beat Syracuse in five sets and to beat Princeton in five sets, but tonight we didn't execute those plays.

"Just because you win doesn't mean everything was great, and just because you lost doesn't mean everything went wrong. We certainly made some mistakes early, but we did a lot of good things too. It was a tough loss, nobody wants to lose, but if we can use this to grow as a program, I'll take it."

Ganes went on to say that he feels very fortunate to be working with a team like the current Owls.

"I'm so proud of this team," he said. "Them working so hard to compete and put themselves in a position to win every match makes me want to work hard and do better. It's a unique situation where it's not the coach pushing the team but the team pushing the coach. So, the position we're in right now is really good."

Kirsten Overton, already the hitting percentage leader in the American Athletic Conference, proved why yet again as she knocked down 15 kills on 20 attempts with just one error for a percentage of .700. Caroline Grattan tied for match-high honors in kills with two Boston College players, with all three recording 18 for the match. Alyssa Drachslin led the Owls with 16 digs, and Sandra Sydlik tallied a double-double with 13 digs to go with 46 assists.

Despite needing to win the third set to stay alive, things did not go well for the Owls early in that set. They fell behind 9-4 before rallying to take seven of the next nine points and tie the set at 11-11. There would be 17 total ties before it was over.

The Blue Hens fought off two set-points for the Owls, but Temple then had to fight off two as well. Overton saved Temple the first time with a kill, while a Boston College service error gave the Owls back the second one and tied the score at 29-29. Grattan knocked down a kill to make it 30-29, and a BC attack error kept Temple alive to play another set.

Temple kept the momentum going for the fourth set, which was its best of the match in terms of hitting efficiency. The Owls recorded 16 team kills with just two errors, and they led the entire way.
The short fifth set had five ties and four lead changes. The Owls had a chance to take the match up 14-13, but Brittany Pavich of BC evened things up at 14 with a kill. It was a tough end for Temple, as back-to-back errors on kill attempts ended the match in favor of the Eagles.

Temple will play two more matches on Saturday, facing Northern Kentucky at 12:30 p.m. and host LIU Brooklyn at 6:30 p.m.