Volleyball Falls to UConn in American Athletic Conference Opener

Wednesday, September 24

Storrs, Conn.

7:00 PM

Temple University

9-4

UConn

8-4

Temple

UConn

Jennifer Iacobini

Photo by: Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Volleyball Falls to UConn in American Athletic Conference Opener

9.24.14 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

STORRS, Conn. - The first American Athletic Conference match of the season for Temple volleyball did not go the Owls' way, as they lost 3-0 at UConn (8-4, 1-0) on Wednesday night. The Huskies' Immanuella Anagu proved tough to contain, knocking down a match-high 19 kills while hitting .552. UConn won by the match by scores of 25-22, 25-18 and 25-22.

Temple (9-4, 0-1) was led by Jennifer Iacobini and Kirsten Overton with nine kills apiece. Sandra Sydlik added 12 digs to 29 assists for a double-double, and Alyssa Drachslin led all players in the match with 19 digs.

Statistically, the Owls matched the Huskies in blocks (Temple six, UConn five) and in digs (Temple 62, UConn 63) and committed only two more errors, but UConn's hitters made the difference. Anagu was the major play-maker for UConn, but the Huskies also got nine kills and hitting percentage of .400 from Erika Thomas.

Temple head coach Bakeer Ganes said not to blame youth or any single factor for the Owls' lack of success, but just a poor performance overall.

"We knew what we were getting ourselves into (with UConn's hitters)," he said. "We had talked about it. We do have a young team but we've had a young team all season. I don't think that's an excuse. Our team has played well against good teams so far this season. We just played badly tonight and didn't execute well in a number of different aspects of the game.

"It was not just the offense. We didn't serve well, and our serve-receive was ok but we didn't attack the ball hard enough and our block was not very organized. There were just different aspects we didn't execute well and if that happens against a good team, it's very tough to compete. UConn played a very good match but we just performed very poorly. We need to figure out how we can do better very soon."

After falling behind by seven midway through the first set, Temple came back to within a point at 21-20. UConn took the next three points for set-point, but after fighting off two of those, the Owls ultimately lost 25-22.

The third set was the tightest of the match with 10 ties early on, and Temple stayed within two-four points the entire way. This time the Owls held off three match points by UConn, but Thomas knocked down her final kill to make it 25-22 and end the match in favor of the Huskies.

Temple will be back in action on Sunday, Sept. 28 when the Owls travel to ECU for a 1:00 p.m. match.

PDF Box Score