After earning her first service ace of the night, Dara Peric looked over to Temple’s bench with a smile.
The service ace was one of three for the sophomore outside hitter, adding to Temple’s total of seven, which helped the Owls (8-2) defeat La Salle 3-0 during the Big 5 Invitational Friday at The Palestra.
“I think we have great communication with all of our coaches and teammates as well, I just feel great energy whenever I am in,” Peric said. “Whenever you serve you never know what will happen obviously, but I always go for an ace, especially in the third set when we didn’t really have anything to lose.”
In the first set, the Owls jumped out to an early 14-6 lead and closed the set on an 11-1 one, eventually winning 25-7.
The second set proved to present more issues for the Owls. Temple trailed early in the set after LaSalle went up 4-3. After two lead changes, LaSalle led 15-12, but the Owls rallied to win the set, 25-20.
“Our side was a little uncontrollable,” junior outside hitter Irem Asci said. “In the second set we had a lot of stupid balls where we didn’t even know what happened.”
In the final set, LaSalle committed five attack errors and Asci scored one attack, her eighth kill of the night, in a 25-16 victory.
“I had good start in the first set, then a little slower in the second set,” Asci said. “ [Coach] Bakeer [Ganeshartanam] gave me the chance to cover it up.”
Temple continues tournament play tomorrow at McGonigle Hall with matches against the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova.
Connor Northrup can be reached at connor.northrup@temple.edu.
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