Volleyball feasts on C-USA bottom dwellers

By Dan Elledge     11/4/10 7:00pm

Although the regular-season conference title became a more difficult goal to attain for the volleyball team due to continued wins by conference front runners the University of Tulsa and Southern Methodist University this weekend, the casual observer would not have been able to tell by the performance Rice posted this weekend. The Owls rebounded from last weekends' tough losses at home to Tulsa and SMU with a perfect weekend on the road.On Friday, the Owls started the weekend off right by beating East Carolina University (1-23, 0-12 C-USA) 3-1. For the match, sophomore middle blocker Nancy Cole had a career-high 20 kills, breaking her week-old record of 18 that she tallied against SMU, while freshman outside hitter Mariah Riddlesprigger added 15. Cole also had a remarkable .471 hitting percentage and added five blocks for the Owls. Senior setter Meredith Schamun led all players with 35 assists, while senior libero Tracey Lam had 19 digs. Junior outside hitter Jordan Meredith provided 10 digs and freshman middle blocker Megan Shepard contributed nine kills.

Two days later, Rice traveled to Huntington, W.Va. to play Marshall University (9-15, 3-9 C-USA). The Owls had an impressive match, as they defeated the Thundering Herd in straight sets 3-0 to extend their winning streak against Marshall to four matches. Rice managed to spread the wealth on the offensive side of the ball, as no one had more than nine kills. Both Schamun and Riddlesprigger had nine kills ,and sophomore outside hitter Laurie McNamara and Cole added eight. Schamun had 28 assists and Lam posted 17 digs.

Although the Owls had a successful weekend, Head Coach Genny Volpe felt that the team did not dominate as much as it should have in the match against C-USA basement-dweller East Carolina, as sometimes Rice lacks the focus to finish off sub-par opponents.

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"[In] one of the games against ECU, I think we slipped up and we let them have a game," Volpe said. "That's one of the things we are working on: when we are ahead on a team to still keep pushing and stay focused and not let them back into the game."

With the winning weekend, Rice now has a 14-11 overall record and a 9-4 conference record. The Owls return back home to the nest this weekend to begin a four-match homestand as they host the University of Memphis (14-10, 5-7 C-USA) today and the University of Alabama-Birmingham (7-17, 4-8 C-USA) tomorrow at Tudor Fieldhouse.

Rice has already played both Memphis and UAB once this season with mixed results. The Owls played at UAB on Oct. 15 and left with a close 3-2 loss but played at Memphis two days later and salvaged their weekend with a 3-1 victory.

Cole believes the loss to UAB was based on blocking issues at the net. She feels they will have to improve on these issues if they want to win the rematch tomorrow.

"The reason why we lost last time was because our blocking was not on key; they have a couple of middles who are very quick, and we let down our block, and I think their middles scored way too much," Cole said.

Volpe feels that the Owls were caught off guard, as they did not see UAB as a tough opponent. However, Volpe vocalized to her players that a loss like this cannot happen again.

"I think we took them for granted," Volpe said. "I don't think that is going to happen again. I remember saying to the team after the match that I thought this was a fluke. I don't think [they] expected a tough opponent. You can't do that, and they made us pay for it."

Even though Volpe feels it will be very hard for the Owls to get back in the chase for a regular-season conference championship due to Tulsa's flawless play in C-USA matches, she still sees the ladies performing as hard as ever to finish off the season strong and to gain momentum heading into the conference tournament.

"The desire and passion to win is there," Volpe said. "It is very important to have that desire to win, and we definitely still have that.

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