Aug. 26, 2006
Box Score
NEWARK, Del. - The UT Arlington volleyball team jumped out to big early leads in the final two games, but were not able to sustain the lead at the end as the Mavericks dropped an 18-30, 30-27, 29-31, 22-30 decision to Delaware in the final match of the 30th Annual Asics/Delaware Invitational.
"I will have to go back and look at the exact rotations, but there is definite rotation that we are weaker in that we are going to have to go back and work on," said head coach Diane Seymour. "Some of it may be we are putting a lot on our freshman outside hitter to play next to the setter where she is going to have to handle a lot of balls. We have to find ways for her to put the ball away a little more. Again, I would have to look back on that, but my guess is that's probably where we got up and got into that weak rotation. There is always going to be one, hopefully, there is only one and that is probably where it was at. We'll be able to fix that."
With the teams tied one-game apiece heading into the break, UTA (2-1) got the upper hand immediately as they took advantage of a couple of errors and got a pair of kills from freshman Teena Sobczak to jump out to a 9-3 advantage. Not to be outdone, the Fightin' Blue Hens went on a 9-3 run of their own to knot the score 12-12. The two teams would never be separated by more than two points the remainder of the game and found themselves locked into a 29-29 tie. UD got one of Colleen Walsh's 28 kills in the match to go ahead by one and when Ellen Murray's attempts sailed wide, the Blue Hens took the third game.
The fourth game began the same as the previous as UTA rode three kills from Murray to jump to a 6-1 advantage. UD regrouped out of a timeout and rattled off the next four points. From that point, both teams battled back-and-forth and were locked in a 14-14 tie on a service ace by Claire McCormack. The Blue Hens would seize control at that point with Walsh leading the way with five more kills in the 22-30 victory in the clinching game.
UD (3-0) never trailed in the opening game and used their size advantage and eight hitting errors from the Mavs to ease to the game one victory.
In the second game, UTA trailed early before battling back to tie the game 22-22. The Mavs would get a kill from Torie Dacus and a service ace from Emily Nedderman to take a 25-23 advantage and force a timeout. The lead would grow to 28-24 before the Blue Hens would score the next three points. UTA would put the game away with another kill from Dacus and a block from Murray and Dacus.
Murray led the Mavs offense with a career-best 17 kills and a.438 hitting percentage. She also added four block assists. She was joined in double figures by Dacus' 14 kills, 12 from Sobczak and 10 from Dani Johnson. Nedderman added seven kills to go along with her 49 assists and three service aces. Ashley Smith continued her strong defense with 26 digs. Dacus and Sobczak had their second double-doubles in as many matches with 14 and 16 digs, respectively.
"Overall on the weekend, we got exactly what we wanted out of this, a couple of wins and some hard-fought matches," said Seymour. " It was an excellent match against Delaware. I think that last game's score probably wasn't reflective of well we actually played in this match. The first game and fourth look like we didn't really compete, we did compete with Delaware who probably outsizes us a little bit and hits the ball harder than anybody we played so far. It is a great, great sign for us to be competitive all the way through to the end."
Sobczak, Nedderman and Murray were all named to the all-tournament team.
The Mavs open their home season on Aug. 29 as they play host to local rival TCU. First serve is set for 7 p.m. at Texas Hall.
