Temple University volleyball (6-3, 1-3 The American Athletic Conference) defeated the University of Delaware (1-2, 0-0 Colonial Athletic Association) 3-2 on Friday afternoon.
Both teams played aggressively to combat the other team’s defense at the beginning of the match, however, only Temple was able to maintain that aggressiveness through all five sets.
All of the sets were close, with neither team having more than a four-point lead until the final set. The Owls won sets one and two 25-23 and 25-22, followed by 25-23 and 25-21 losses in the third and fourth sets. They won the final fifth set 15-8.
“I feel like we just didn’t execute well overall in different areas,” said head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam. “Serve receive was not consistent enough, and our transition work was not very crisp and clean and fast today. It was not great in the first sets either, but we were just able to score enough points to get those wins. We just focused on resetting everything in the fifth set.”
The Owls had different players step up throughout the match. Sophomore middle blocker Kayla Spells had 13 kills, 34 attempts and a hitting percentage of .235. Freshman outside hitter Ilayda Dincer served up 11 kills, 24 attempts and a hitting percentage of .417.
“I’m very happy for them,” Ganesharantnam said. “We have 15 kids on the team, and they’re all working hard. They are all really, really going after it every practice. When somebody doesn’t perform like they usually do, luckily we have enough players to step in and carry the load.”
Senior outside hitter Katerina Papazoglou showed off her experience by leading the team in kills with 17. She also had 45 attempts and a hitting percentage of .333.
“[Papazoglou] is someone that is very experienced and has been a starter for us for multiple seasons and was able to step in and help us,” Ganesharatnam said.
The Owls will play next on Feb. 27 against Towson (1-0, 0-0 Colonial Athletic Association) at 1 p.m. at McGonigle Hall.
Be the first to comment