Schamun sets record as volleyball cruises
Any player would openly admit that the goals of the team take precedence over her pursuit of individual records. However, that same player may secretly wish of having her name at the top of the list in a statistical category. Luckily for senior setter Meredith Schamun, neither desire came in conflict with the other as the Owls had a perfect weekend, beating both the University of Texas- El Paso 3-1 (10-7, 2-2 C-USA) and the University of Central Florida 3-1 (7-9, 0-4 C-USA), with Schamun breaking the Rice school record for career assists by making her 4,541st assist during the second set of the UTEP match. Rice's victories increased their record to 4-1 in conference and put them in third in C-USA behind Southern Methodist University (12- 3, 4-0 C-USA) and the University of Tulsa (13-2, 4-0 C-USA). On Friday, Rice hosted UTEP in what was a crucial game as the Miners were undefeated in the conference at the time. Rice won the match with set scores of 25-20, 22-25, 25-18 and 25-19 to hand UTEP their first conference loss of the season. Junior outside hitter Ashleigh McCord had 20 kills and senior middle back Nancy Cole had 16. Senior libero Tracey Lam had 28 digs while Schamun added 57 assists.
After tallying 11 assists in the first set, her set for junior outside hitter Jordan Meredith helped her push past Katie Meyer (Sid Rich, '92), who held the previous record, which she set back in 1991. Schamun has now added to that total with 4,626 assists in her career to this point. Schamun said that it was an honor to break the record that seemed impossible to reach when she was a freshman.
"It's really awesome," Schamun said. "It is a record that has been held for a long time and I respected it when I was a freshman coming in so it's been awesome to be able to do that this year with all of the people on my team because they are a great team to be with."
On Sunday, the Owls traveled to UCF in Orlando, Fla. to play the Golden Knights. Rice's trip was successful as they walked away with a win with set scores 25-11, 25-20, 23-25 and 26-24. McCord had 16 kills and Cole added 14. Lam had 27 digs while Schamun added 45 assists.
The Owls are also now over .500 with a 9-8 record overall. The Owls hope to stay above the mark this week as they face Tulane University (4-12, 1-3 C-USA) in two matches in Tudor Fieldhouse tonight and tomorrow.
In Rice's past five seasons, the team has posted a 2-8 record against the Green Wave, although Rice won their last meeting against Tulane 3-0 in New Orleans last season. However, this isn't the same Tulane team that Rice has faced in the past as the Green Wave have gotten off to a slow start with a 1-3 record in conference and a 4-12 record overall.
Head Coach Genny Volpe feels that Tulane is stronger than their record shows.
"Tulane is usually very aggressive with their serving and with their attacking," Volpe said. "We are going to focus once again on our defense with the hard hitters that they have and on our first touch against their serve. It should be a really tough competition." The Owls regained the upper hand in the rivalry last year, winning 3-0 at Tudor Fieldhouse, but the Green Wave swept the Owls in two matches in 2008 and eliminated them from the C-USA Tournament in 2007 in three straight sets.
Other than preparing for Tulane, the Owls are trying to focus on the fact that they have to play on consecutive nights.
Playing both nights will be a challenge, according to Schamun, as the team wants to leave the weekend 2-0.
"What we have been focusing on is that we are playing back-to-back," Schamun said. "We did this a couple of weeks ago against [the University of Southern Mississippi] and it didn't quite go as we would have liked it to so we are really going to focus on going 2-0 this weekend."
With the strong play over the last couple of weeks into the start of conference play, Volpe feels that the team can't start to overlook opponents and that every conference match-up is going to be important as teams will be gunning for Rice.
"The team understands that everyone who plays us thinks that we are a good team and they are going to give their best effort against us," Volpe said. "I don't think anyone is going to take Rice for granted and they will respect our team. Our job is to treat them the same way.
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