Volleyball Closes Play in The American with Sweep over ECU

Friday, November 27

Greenville, N.C.

1:00 p.m.

Temple University

24-8, 15-5AAC

ECU

12-19, 5-15AAC

Temple University

ECU

Photo by: Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Volleyball Closes Play in The American with Sweep over ECU

11.27.15 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

GREENVILLE, N.C. — The Temple volleyball team closed out the 2015 American Athletic Conference season with a 3-0 sweep on the road at East Carolina on Friday afternoon. The Owls took the match 25-21, 25-23, and 25-15 to improve to 24-8 overall, 15-5 in conference play. ECU ends its season at 12-19 overall, 5-15 in The American.

"To finish conference play like we did is really great," noted Head Coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam. "We played a tough schedule, but even then, we managed to spit or sweep every weekend. We closed the season by playing five matches in 10 days, including three against teams in the top of the conference, and we won all of them."

Temple will finish alone in second place in the tough American Athletic Conference. The placement is the second in two years for the Owls, who tied with SMU for second last season.

Sophomore Irem Asci paced a balanced offense for Temple, hammering 13 kills with just two errors to hit .524. Senior Halle McCullough made the most of her start, tallying nine kills with a team-best four blocks. Junior Kirsten Overton finished with seven kills, while fellow middle, freshman Carla Guennewig added six. Juniors Caroline Grattan and Tyler Davis each added four kills in the win.

Senior Sandra Sydlik distributed the offense with 34 assists, adding a team-best 12 digs to round out her second-straight double-double. Senior Alyssa Drachslin put up seven assists, while also adding six digs. Sophomore Dara Peric recorded nine digs, while senior Kayla Yingling added seven.

Set one was close at the out-set, with each team taking a slim edge until it was knotted at 12-8. A 6-0 Temple run then put the Owls in the driver's seat. Temple kept its lead until five unanswered points from ECU tied the set at 17-17. From there, the set was tied twice more until the Owls scored four-straight to make it a 23-19 score. The Pirates scored twice out of a timeout, but Temple forced an ECU error and got a Guennewig kill to win set one, 25-21.

Another close set followed with 11 tie scores before it was 14-14. Temple then scored three in a row, two off the arm of Asci to make it 17-14, forcing an ECU timeout. Out of the break, ECU went on a 6-3 run to knot things at 19-19 on a Temple error. ECU was able to take three one-point leads, (21-20, 22-21, and 23-22) before Temple scored three-straight points to win it, 25-23.

Temple came out swinging in set three. The Owls took control of a 4-4 match by mounting an 8-2 run to make it, 14-6. The Owls kept their lead over eight points the rest of the way, cruising to a 25-15 victory to earn the sweep.

"We cleaned up our serve-receive after the first two sets," explained Ganesharatnam. "Once we did that, we were able to run the offense the way we wanted to."

The Owls will now await a possible at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Coming into today's match, Temple held an RPI of 71, which is expected to rise after the win. Selections will be announced on Sunday at 9:00 p.m., live on ESPNU.

Regarding a possible NCAA selection, Ganesharatnam knows its a long shot, but is happy the team was able to make their case with a strong finish.

"We did what we could do, we took care of what we could control," he said. "We know it's a long shot, but we have a chance, and we can make a case for ourselves. At this point, we can just sit back and see what happens, but we did everything we could do."

Box Score (PDF)