Volleyball Takes Down Charlotte in Straight Sets on Alumni Night

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Women's Volleyball

at Wichita State

Nov 14

6 PM

Wichita, Kan.

Women's Volleyball

at North Texas

Nov 16

1 PM

Denton, Texas

Women's Volleyball

vs American Volleyball Championship

Nov 21

TBD

HOUSTON - Rice notched its fifth straight set victory in conference play in a 3-0 victory over the Charlotte 49ers on Friday night in Tudor Fieldhouse. With the victory, Rice improves to 14-6, 9-2 in AAC play while Charlotte falls to 4-20, 1-10 in conference play.

"Overall, I'm pleased with this win," said head coach Genny Volpe. "We can clean up some defensive aspects of our game for sure, but really proud of how Lola came out strong and stayed strong all night. We had really good balance from Savannah running the offense. Nia had a solid match too, she really controlled the back court. We need to continue to fine tune our game for a big match on the road on Sunday."

Kaitlyn Knobbe led the Owls offensively with 11 kills in 19 attempts. Lola Foord set a new career-high hitting percentage with .667, notching 10 kills in 15 attempts and zero errors on the night, and was the only other Owl to record double-digit kills.

Savannah Skopal had the lions share of assists on the night, leading the way with 37. Her assists allowed the Owls to hit at .359 on the night, the second-highest team hitting percentage of the season. Kaia Mateo and Nia McCardell both tallied two, while Darby Harris and Campbell Love had one each.

Digs were pretty evenly distributed on the night, with McCardell tallying 14, Love notching 11, Samarah Hill collecting nine, and Skopal putting up seven. Harris, Katrina Jensen, and Knobbe all had two.

Foord and Lademi Ogunlana both led the Owls with three blocks each, with Knobbe tallying one.

HOW IT HAPPENED
SET ONE (RICE 25-16)
Rice was in control from the beginning of this set, only allowing one tie and never looking back after that 2-2 tie. From the tie to the media timeout, Rice outscored Charlotte 13-6, taking a 15-8 lead. Charlotte cut the deficit to four at 16-12, but Rice continued to push back ahead to a 20-14 lead before Charlotte called a timeout. Outscoring the 49ers 3-1 after that timeout, Charlotte called another timeout to regroup, but Rice scored two of the next three points to secure set one at 25-16.

SET TWO (RICE 25-21)
The second set was the most competitive on the night, with 12 ties and six lead changes in total. Charlotte took its first lead of the night at 4-3, and would again hold leads at 5-4, 6-5, 7-6, 10-9, 11-10, 13-12, and 14-13, but the Owls kept it close when the 49ers threatened to pull away. After Charlotte took the 14-13 lead, Rice went on a 3-0 run to flip the script, taking a two-point lead at 16-14, not relinquishing the lead after that point in the set. Charlotte closed the gap at 22-21, but Rice went on a 3-0 run, with a kill and two attacking errors from the opposition, to take a 2-0 lead heading into the intermission.

SET THREE (RICE 25-17)
The only point that saw the third set tied was at 1-1, with the Owls overpowering Charlotte to take a 9-2 lead from that point. Rice extended the lead to eight points twice, once at 12-4, and again at 14-6, before taking its largest lead of the night at 19-9. While Charlotte dug into the lead and fended Rice's match point off a few times, it was ultimately not enough as a final kill from Taylor Johnson sealed the set at 25-17 and the match at 3-0 in favor of Rice.

UP NEXT
Rice will travel west to take on UTSA on Sunday afternoon at the UTSA Convocation Center. First serve is set for 1 p.m.

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