Sept. 24, 2009
Box Score | Photo Gallery 
ARLINGTON, Texas - UT Arlington's season-high 16.5 blocks led them to a 24-26, 30-28, 27-25, 25-23, victory over UTSA in both teams' Southland Conference season opener on Thursday night at Texas Hall. The Mavericks (5-8) also recorded season-highs with 63 kills, 60 assists and six aces while picking up their fifth win of the season. UTSA drops to 4-10 on the season.
Sophomore Christy Driscoll had a season-high 12 kills and six blocks, sophomore Emily Shearin equaled a career best eight blocks, Alicia Shaffer notched her second career double-double (11 kills, 11 digs) and added a season-high six assists and six blocks while Bianca Sauls led the Mavericks with 14 kills in the victory.
"First of all it was a very exciting match," UT Arlington head coach Diane Seymour said. "The match was decided by a total of eight points and hats off to UTSA. And hats off to our ladies as well. I think tonight showed that both of our teams went out and played a tough non-conference schedule."
The match was a seesaw battle from the start with a total of 15 lead changes and 39 occasions where the score was tied.
"I thought our kids played very well under pressure," Seymour said. "We blocked the ball extremely well tonight."
Sophomore outside hitter Tara Frantz led the Mavs' charge in the first set with five kills, but the Roadrunners 18 kills led them to the first-set victory, 26-24.
UT Arlington returned the favor in the second set with 18 kills, led by Shaffer who put down four winners and by Raegan Daniel, who finished with her team-leading sixth double-double of the season with a season-high 47 assists and 13 digs. Daniel posted 15 assists in the second set. The Mavs controlled the net in the set with 10 block assists.
The second set alone had 14 ties and five lead changes. Senior Teena Sobczak was up to 15 digs after two sets and finished with a season-high 22, which is the most by a Maverick this season.
UT Arlington led for most of the third set but a 10-3 run by UTSA gave the Roadrunners a 23-21 advantage late in the set. Back-to-back attack errors by UTSA evened the score and then later another UTSA error put the Mavs ahead 26-25 before Shaffer gave the Mavericks a 2-1 lead in the set with a kill to give UT Arlington the 27-25 victory.
UTSA went on a 6-1 run in the fourth set to grab a 20-15 lead, which was the largest lead by any team in the set, before the Mavericks ended the match on a 10-3 run which was sparked with kills from four different Mavs as Amanda Aguilera, Shaffer, Frantz and Sauls all tallied winners to help the Mavs to the conference-opening win.
Shearin remained consistent throughout the match with at least two block assists in every set. She finished with a team best eight and added six kills on 14 swings and had two digs.
"I feel like we need to redeem ourselves as a team after how we played last year in conference," Shearin said. "I think everyone was really fired up and I thought we played well."
UT Arlington will finish its seven-match homestand with a Southland Conference match on Saturday, Sept. 26, against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi with a 2 p.m. first serve at Texas Hall.
