Owls come up short against Golden Hurricane

Temple Volleyball (9-15, 3-10 The American Athletic Conference) lost 3-1 in a four-set match against the University of Tulsa (11-13, 4-8 The American) Friday night at McGonigle Hall. Tulsa has swept Temple for the season, only allowing one set win between the two matches this year.

KEY PLAYS

• A kill by Golden Hurricane senior outside hitter Kayley Cassaday started a 5-1 run in the middle of the first set to help Tulsa pull away from Temple. The Golden Hurricane went from being tied at 13, to Tulsa being up 18-14.
• A kill by Golden Hurricane freshman middle blocker Arianna Mongare ended the first set, giving Tulsa the 25-21 win.
• After a kill by Owls’ junior outside hitter Jelena Prolic late in the second set, Temple was unable to come up with more offense, and Tulsa scored on the next four plays to end the set with a 25-18 victory.
• Late in the third set with Tulsa one point away from another set victory, Temple was able to swing the set back in their favor with a kill by sophomore outside hitter Taylor Davenport. A service ace by sophomore setter Patrycja Zielinska and a kill by redshirt senior right side hitter Peyton Boyd allowed the Owls to take the set 26-24.
• Tulsa opened the fourth set on a 6-0 run. Temple only managed to score 14 points in this set, and Tulsa walked away with the victory winning 25-14 and 3-1 overall for the match.

THE NUMBERS

• Cassaday led the game with 24 kills for the match for Tulsa, followed by Davenport with 20 kills.
• Tulsa hit a combined .366 percent for the match with Temple hitting just .248.
• Temple had 20 errors, an issue that has plagued them all season. Tulsa had only seven errors in the match.

WORDS FROM THE COACH

“We were just really off tonight for some reason,” said coach Linda Hampton-Keith. “We had a couple players that were off and we could never just kinda get in sync which is really disappointing because we thought we were really excited about this opportunity and again just disappointed that we didn’t take advantage of it so yeah we were a little off didnt like it.”

ON TAP

The Owls hopes to come back stronger against Wichita State University (12-11, 7-5 American) who shutout the team earlier this year. The match will start at 1 p.m. on Nov. 6 at McGonigle Hall.