Volleyball falls in road matches with SMU, Tulsa

By Paul Fitzgerald     10/29/09 7:00pm

The volleyball team has struggled all season with closing out matches, and this weekend was no different. Difficult losses on the road to conference foes Southern Methodist University and the University of Tulsa dealt a crushing blow to the Owls' goal of a conference championship. Rice traveled to Dallas to take on SMU (17-7, 7-3 Conference USA) Friday evening, a team the Owls defeated in four sets at Tudor Fieldhouse just a few weeks ago. Yet this match had a vastly different result, as the Mustangs downed Rice (14-8, 6-5 C-USA) in a five-set match (25-23, 21-25, 19-25, 25-22, 15-7).

While the Owls outplayed the Mustangs during the first three sets, SMU's persistence in the final two sets, coupled with Rice's trouble with their opponent's service game, allowed the Mustangs to beat a team that, on paper, is clearly more talented. Four of Rice's players recorded double-digit kills, led by sophomore outside hitter Ashleigh McCord's 23. But those numbers mean nothing in the face of defeat.

Junior libero Tracey Lam, who led the team with 34 digs, continued the strong play she has exhibited throughout the season. Lam, long a talented defensive stalwart, is in the top 10 nationally in digs per set and was named C-USA's Defensive Player of the Week, an honor Head Coach Genny Volpe felt was a long time coming.

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"She's deserved this award eight or nine times this season already," Volpe said. "She's been extremely consistent all season long, and there's no doubt in my mind she's the best libero in the conference."

With a loss to SMU, Rice went into Sunday's match needing a victory over Tulsa (19-5, 8-2 C-USA) to re-insert themselves in the race for a conference championship. But the Golden Hurricane's strong attack crumpled the Owls at crucial moments, resulting in a four-set win for the home team (25-19, 26-24, 22-25, 25-21).

McCord once again led Rice with a match-high 20 kills, while junior setter Meredith Schamun recorded a match-high 57 assists to key the Owls' attack. While Rice posted more kills than its opponent, Tulsa's consistency allowed them to defeat the Owls for the second time this season. The Golden Hurricane limited their errors to four, a metric senior outside hitter Natalie Bogan said was key to the match.

"They had some great outside hitters, but it's still really disappointing to lose," Bogan said. "It came down to the fact that they didn't make a lot of errors when it really mattered, and we did."

Those errors, unfortunately, occurred in key situations, namely at the close of numerous sets. The Owls have dropped three five-set matches thus far in which they have led two sets to one and have dropped difficult matches to the University of Oklahoma (13-7, 6-5 Big 12), Wichita State University (16-4, 7-3 Missouri Valley) and the University of South Carolina (12-9, 4-8 Southeastern Conference).

The Owls' recent struggles, however, have left them sixth in the conference, three games back of conference leaders University of Southern Mississippi (21-4, 9-2 C-USA) and Tulane University (14-6, 9-2 C-USA). With six games left on the conference slate, Rice will need a miracle to win the regular season conference championship.

The Owls recognize the near-impossibility of their task, and are instead focusing on finishing the regular season strong and taking the C-USA Conference Tournament, which Rice will host at Tudor Fieldhouse Nov. 20-22.

"Our goal is to finish off with a winning season and look forward to conference tournament," Bogan said. "That's all that matters now, because the ultimate goal is the NCAA Tournament."

With last weekend in the past, the Owls must now focus on abysmal East Carolina University (9-14, 2-9 C-USA), which sits in 11th place in the C-USA standings and will play Rice tonight at Tudor Fieldhouse. Sunday afternoon's match, also at Tudor, pits Rice against Marshall University (19-5, 7-3 C-USA), the team directly ahead of them in the conference standings.

Rice is in desperate need of two big victories, both to move up in the standings for better seeding in the conference tournament and to garner some momentum heading into its stretch run. The Owls are eager to get back on Tudor's court and play winning volleyball.

"We had a discussion in the locker room after Tulsa, and we'll try to make our practices as competitive as possible," Bogan said. "We'll be happy to have another opportunity to play a good team and show we can beat the better teams in the conference."

While the recent stretch that the Owls are experiencing might faze some teams, the team has faced larger challenges in the past few years.

For the last two seasons, Rice was placed in a tough facility situation due to the renovation of Autry Court at Tudor Fieldhouse. Furthermore, Hurricane Ike forced the team's evacuation from Houston and their withdrawal from the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack Invitational.

This season, a rash of difficult losses and a swine flu outbreak amongst the team have also engendered more adversity for the squad. The flu outbreak, which hit Schamun, McCord and senior outside hitter Jennifer McClean, among others, prevented the Owls from participating in the University of Texas-San Antonio Tournament.

Somehow, through all of these situations, Rice has maintained its positive perspective.

"I think that we don't really feel that it's been that rough of a road because other teams have been through worse," Volpe said. "We haven't had anything catastrophic happen, like four years ago when Tulane had Katrina. There have been worse situations, so we try to be grateful for what we have."

While some schools might back down in the midst of a three-game losing streak that drops them to sixth in the conference standings, the Owls have faced much worse, a fact Bogan believes will help Rice emerge from their current rough patch.

"We've gone through losing seasons before, and we've come out of it on top," Bogan said. "Last year, we went to the NCAA Tournament following a losing season, so we know how to respond to times like this. What matters now is that we don't give up and [that we] remain on the same page. And if we do that, we'll be able to get out of this.

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