Temple’s dominant, 25-11, 25-17, 25-16 sweep of Cincinnati Friday was the Owls’ first home conference match of the season.
Coach Bakeer Ganes said his team was happy to be back playing at a familiar place.
“The travel really takes a lot out of you,” Ganes said. “So it’s nice to be home, to play in your own gym, to use your own locker room, and to play in front of the students.”
Temple posted high hitting percentages in each set, hitting 43.3 percent in the first, 35.3 in the second and 40.5 in the third for an average of 39.6 for the match. The win marked Temple’s third conference win of the season.
Ganes said he was pleased with the effort from his hitters.
“I thought offensively we did a good job,” Ganes said. “It was pretty much a complete game.”
The convincing win in conference play put the Owls above .500 in The American for the first time this season at 3-2. After a 3-0 win against the University of South Florida in their last match, confidence is growing for the Owls.
“I think we can compete with every team in the conference if we play up to our potential and we play consistent,” Ganes said.
Sophomore Tyler Davis led the team in kills with 16 and felt the team’s performance is something they can build off of.
“I think just to keep the positive energy we had the whole time and we definitely played with a lot more confidence than we usually do,” Davis said.
After the team spilt matches in Florida last weekend, Davis said the team came into this weekend wanting to take advantage of being at home and not having to travel so much which is something Temple did a lot of in the first month of the season.
“Coming off of the road with a spilt [in Florida] we knew we had to take advantage of being at home,” Davis said.
The Owls will look to make good use the home court advantage again on Sunday when they take on Memphis.
Greg Frank can be reached at greg.frank@temple.edu or on Twitter @g_frank6.
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