Sept. 16, 2006

Box Score

TULSA, Okla. - The UT Arlington volleyball team rebounded from a loss a Friday night by hitting a season-high .319 in handing Arkansas-Little Rock a 30-17, 30-23, 31-29 Saturday afternoon at the Oral Roberts Classic.

The Mavs hitting percentage got better as the match went on as UTA hit .294 in the opener, .304 in game two and .358 in the clincher.

UTA (10-5) came out strong in the opener and got three straight kills from Teena Sobczak and followed it up with a pair of Gina Kalb kills and a pair of Emily Nedderman aces to open a 7-2 advantage. Torie Dacus would get three kills of her own to push the advantage to eight midway through the game. The largest lead of the game came at 23-10 and again at 29-16 on kills from Kalb, before Sobczak put the game away with her fifth kill of the game.

The second game was much the same as the Mavs used a 10-3 run to open up a big advantage. Dani Johnson led the offensive surge with 10 kills on 21 swings with only one error. As a team, the Mavs hit .304 with 20 kills and only three errors.

UALR (7-10) would come out strong in the third game and build a 10-6 advantage. UTA would hang tough and battle back and eventually take their first lead of the game at 16-15 on a service ace from Ashley Smith. The two teams stayed within a point of each other the remainder of the game until the Mavs got a kill from Dacus and another from Johnson to end the match.

Nedderman recorded her triple-double of the season with 11 kills, 40 assists and 10 digs. She was joined in double-digit kills by Sobczak and Johnson with 13, Dacus 11 and Kalb 10. Defensively, Smith had a team-high 24 digs and was followed by Sobczak's 18, Johnson's 15 and 10 each of Dacus and Nedderman.

The Mavs return later this afternoon as they take on St. Francis at 5 p.m.