Although the Owls won the second set 25-18, the Tigers crushed their hopes at a comeback in the final two.
Temple University volleyball (4-9, 0-2 The American Athletic Conference) lost 3-1 in their second conference game of the season against the University of Memphis (8-6, 1-1 The American) on Sunday afternoon in Memphis, Tennessee.
Temple started to fall behind early in the first set after freshman setter Patrycja Zielinska had a ball handling error and freshman middle blocker Taylor Davenport had an attack error from Zielinska.
“We had a slow start to the match,” said head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam. “We made a lot of unforced errors in the beginning. We had a much better rhythm in the second set, and I thought the rest of the match was better.”
Despite the self-inflicted errors, Temple came back with an early 5-1 lead in the second set, but the Owls couldn’t continue their momentum, which gave Memphis an advantage.
Ganesharatnam partially attributed the Owls’ lack of rhythm to a few players being sidelined today and another staying back for the weekend.
Redshirt-junior right side Peyton Boyd played against Southern Methodist University on Friday for one of the first times since suffering a significant injury last year, but did not record any minutes against Memphis.
“We’re just trying to regroup, get healthy and see what we can do next weekend,” Ganesharatnam said.
Junior outside hitter Gem Grimshaw served up 16 kills on 44 total attempts for the Owls. Graduate student Katerina Papazoglou helped Temple on offense with 10 kills and only three errors.
“[Grimshaw] and [Papazoglou] did some good things for us on defense,” Ganesharatnam said. “But I think it’s not just one player, one position.”
The Owls will continue conference play on Oct. 1 at 7 p.m., when they’ll take on Tulane University (9-5, 2-0 The American) in McGonigle Hall.
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