Oct. 14, 2012
UCF Athletics Social Media Directory
By Andrew Jennette
UCFAthletics.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (UCFAthletics.com) - The UCF volleyball team fell behind early and was unable to complete a spirited comeback as it dropped a five-setter (25-18, 25-18, 22-25, 23-25, 15-6), at UAB on Sunday afternoon.
The Knights (7-13, 4-4) got a career-performance from senior Meredith Murphy who dug-out 45 attacks, shattering her previous career-high of 33 set in 2010. Marie Reiterova notched a monstrous double-double with a 45-assist, 16-dig performance. Sophomore Ashley Gialenios also notched a 10-kill, 11-dig double-double, her third of the season. Redshirt sophomore Angelica Crump carried the load offensively with 18 kills.
"We rely so much on our serve/receive game, like we have throughout the entire year, and it just did not show up today like it usually does," acting head coach Michelle Chatman said. "UAB did a great job of serving tough and made it very difficult for us to initiate our offense with good initial passes"
"Meredith did a great job with so many big digs. Coming out into the match, our scouting showed that UAB liked to hit a lot of cross-court shots and so it was critical that Meredith maintained proper positioning and she did that all afternoon," Chatman continued. "It was also great to see Kaye-Alese (Green) come back from her injury and really show the kind of skills and athleticism she can give us from the middle. We expect her to keep getting better and better."
Next weekend, UCF battles Southern Miss in a pair of conference matches. The Knights welcome the Golden Eagles to campus on Friday night at 7 p.m. before heading to Hattiesburg on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
After dropping the first two sets, both 25-18, the Knights showed their resiliency in the third set as they took the frame, 25-22. Crump registered six kills and Murphy picked up 11 digs as the Knights started their comeback. UCF's offense racked up 20 total kills in the stanza and hit 224.
Riding the wave of momentum, UCF came out firing in the fourth set and took it, 25-23. Crump provided another offensive spark with seven kills. Green picked up four of her season-high nine kills. Senior Evija Vilde had an impressive set with five kills and zero errors while hitting .263.
The Knights' rally came up short in the fifth frame as they were unable to overcome the offensive and defensive efforts of UAB's Sam Serley and dropped the set, 15-6. Serley finished the match with 17 kills and seven blocks (three solo) en route to 22 total points.