Rice University
Houston
Rice Beats Houston 3-2
9/27/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 27, 2007
HOUSTON -- After stumbling in the first game, Rice battled back against Houston to win 26-30, 30-24, 30-28, 17-30, 15-10 in Conference USA volleyball action on Thursday evening at Fox Gym.
For the Owls (8-8, 3-1 C-USA), the victory avenged a 3-0 loss to the Cougars (8-7, 3-1) on Sept. 13 and ties the teams in the league standings.
Sophomore Natalie Bogan (Oakland, Calif.) led the balanced Owl attack with 14 kills. Sophomore Jennifer McClean (Cy Fair HS) was next with 12 kills and freshman Caroline Gill (Fairhope, Ala.) added 10. Leading the back court defense was freshman Tracey Lam (San Francisco, Calif.) who had a career high 26 digs. Junior Jessica Holderness (Sycamore, Ill.) matched her best with 24 digs.
"Tracey Lam with 26 digs, I'm just so proud of her," praised head coach Genny Volpe. "She's a freshman playing with a lot of responsibilities and she's really stepped it up and she's getting better everyday. It was nice to see that out of her.
"I was also really proud of Meredith Schamun, she ran a really nice offense. She's a freshman in a key position."
Neither team could grab the momentum to open the match as the Owls and the Cougars battled though 10 ties, the last at 14-14. Houston's Justine Farmer broke the tie with a kill, sparking a 10-2 run as the Cougars took control. The Owls fought off four game points to close to 29-26, but it wasn't enough as Farmer answered again for UH.
Rice came back strong in the second, taking the lead for with a McClean kill and a Kristina Dennemann ace. The Cougars stayed close early, but the Owls used a kill from Gill to launch a 5-0 rally and pull away to even the match.
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Houston quickly took control of game four, jumping out to an 8-2 lead. Farmer had seven kills and no errors to keep her team alive as the Cougars tied the match score at 2-2.
The Owls responded to the setback by scoring the first four points of the decisive game five and would never trail. Houston would rally and close the margin to a single point four times, but Rice refused to relinquish the lead. With the Cougars threatening at 10-9, Holderness ignited a 5-1 run and closed out the victory with the final kill.
"I'm so impressed with how the team responded to Houston," said Volpe. "(The Cougars) are such a very strong defensive team. Houston played some great defense and put us in trouble early.
"It was a match of momentum. They had it in the beginning, we had it in the middle and they started to have it towards the end. Going into game five, our team pulled it together and it was so key for us to have a strong start in game five."
Houston's Farmer led all hitters with 28 kills, while Hannah Sullivan added 20 in the losing effort.
Next up for Rice is a return to the road. The Owls face off with SMU on Oct. 5 in Dallas, then head to Tulsa for a battle with the Golden Hurricane on Oct. 7.
