Sept. 14, 2017

Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

ARLINGTON, Texas -- UC Davis rallied to win the final three sets to post a 3-1 win (25-14, 21-25, 17-25, 13-25) over UTA to open the Maverick Classic on Thursday night at College Park Center in a game that was presented by Texas Trust Credit Union.

UTA (5-5) opened the night with the win in the first set in dominating fashion before UC Davis (6-5) rallied to win the final three sets to hand the Mavs their first home loss of the year.

The game saw 1,040 at College Park Center, the third-largest crowd in UTA Volleyball history, behind crowds for Texas State in 2014 and 2015, the only other four-digit attendances in school annals. The match was the opener of the Maverick Classic, a five-team event that will consist of four matches each on Friday and Saturday.

The Aggies rode 19 blocks in the game to the win, also hitting .227 with 50 assists and 72 digs, holding the Mavs to a .180 hitting percentage.

"We came out strong and UC Davis made a couple of adjustments that took us a while to adjust too," UTA head coach J.T. Wenger said. "We were getting there and starting to make the adjustments that we needed to but they made a change and it took us a while to get to that point. They went from a 5-1 (formation) to a 6-2 and that was something that for them was a good move, because we were able to score a lot of points when they were in a 5-1. When they switched out of that it took us a little while to adjust. We hadn't faced a 6-2 team in a couple weeks so it was a little bit of an adjustment."

The game marked a matchup of Wenger and UC Davis head coach Dan Conners, as the pair were teammates on the UCLA 2001 men's NCAA runner-up roster and later coached together at UCLA. The pair won a national title with the Bruins in 2000.

LEADING THE MAVS
The Mavs were led by a double-double from senior Qiana Canete, who had a team-high 13 kills and 16 digs. Junior Zhanelle Geathers added 11 kills and eight digs, with sophomore Kylie Jedlicka returning to the court to chart five kills and 15 digs. Sophomore Madison McConnell charted a season-high 11 kills, with junior Libbie Vickers owning 12 digs in her fourth career game as the libero. Freshman Tessa Harfield had three kills with Kailyn Gilbreath leading the team with 36 assists.

NEXT
The Maverick Classic will continue on Friday with a four-match day, with UC Davis facing Lamar at 10 a.m. CT, Houston Baptist facing UC Davis at 2:30 p.m., Lamar facing Arizona State at 5 p.m. and UTA hosting Houston Baptist at 7 p.m. at College Park Center. All games are streamed live on UTAMavs.com with the Voice of the Mavs, Josh Sours, calling the action.

SET ONE
The Mavs opened up strong in the first set, taking a 4-2 lead and fighting off a pair of points to take a 6-4 advantage after a kill from McConnell and a block from Geathers. Canete added one of her four kills in the set for a 9-7 lead and McConnell added a back-to-back kills for a 11-8 lead. UTA took a 13-9 lead into the first UDC timeout of the set and stretched it to 19-14 after the second timeout. UTA completed a 6-0 run to take the first set, 25-14.

SET TWO
UTA immediately fell into a hole in the second set, with the Aggies seeing their lead extend to 5-2, 8-2 and 11-2 on a 7-0 run that forced a UTA timeout. UTA went on a furious 18-9 run out of the timeout to even up the set at 20-20. UCD then scored three of four to get to 24-21 and finish off the set win at 25-21. The Mavs got five kills in the second set from Geathers but UCD hit .268 to UTA's .179 percentage.

SET THREE
The Aggies opened up the third set strong, taking a 6-3 lead and a 10-5 advantage after a UTA timeout. UCD built up its lead to 17-10 after a UTA timeout and took a 20-10 advantage for its largest lead of the match. UTA fought back to cut the lead to 20-14 but UCD used a .212 hitting percentage in the set to post a 25-17 win.

SET FOUR
The Mavs fell behind in a 4-0 hole to open the fourth set but rallied back to even it at 5-5 after a Gilbreath kill. UTA took a 7-6 lead for its first advantage since the first set and after the match was evened at 9-9, UCD went on a 4-1 run to take a 13-10 lead and force a UTA timeout. UDF then went on a 5-0 run to take a 21-12 lead, making UTA Coach J.T. Wenger call his final timeout. UCD finished off the set with a 21-13 win for the 3-1 win.