ORLANDO – The UCF volleyball team (8-0, 2-0) completed the sweep over Temple (5-3, 1-3) on Friday to maintain the Knights' perfect start to the season. The win moved the Knights to 8-0, surpassing their best start to a season since 2010 and just one shy of the 1983 squad's start to the year.
"We don't really look at being 8-0, it's just nice to get a positive start in conference," said head coach Todd Dagenais. "We will enjoy this road sweep like we do with all other road sweeps… with ice cream. Then we will jump on the plane tomorrow and get back and prepare for our next match."
With the win, the Knights are now 2-0 in conference play. Over the course of the rest of the regular season, UCF will have six matches remaining with three other American Athletic Conference opponents in ECU, Cincinnati and South Florida.
A day after a nailbiter with the Owls, the Knights seemed to put it all together on Friday, winning each set by a margin of six or more.
The Knights fell behind in set one but rallied back in a big way, going on an 8-0 run at the end of the set to clinch the win, 25-19, but the Knights' best was yet to come.
In set two, the Knights went up 13-7 to force Temple to call a timeout, but the UCF momentum could not be slowed. The Knights went on to outpace the Owls 12-5 over the back half of the set to secure the 25-12 set victory.
The Knights kept that energy rolling into the final set, going up 3-0 before Temple answered back with a point of their own. The Owls managed to keep the score close for much of the set, cutting it to just a one-point deficit at one point, but it wouldn't be enough as the Knights kicked it into extra gear later in the set to put it away, 25-16, securing the 3-0 sweep.
McKenna Melville secured her second double-double of the season after turning in a 15 kill, 10 dig effort.
Anne-Marie Watson also enjoyed a nice day on the floor, hitting .389 for 8 kills. She also had four block assists and two digs.
DAGENAIS DIALOUGE:
[On what led to the win]
"Offensively, we were able to take advantage of some opportunities that we didn't take advantage of yesterday. It was just enough offense to give us a cushion. The blocking and the defense is really what came up big for us today, and the serving game was the MVP. We had them off balance nearly the entire match with our serve."
[On how the team kept momentum]
"Tough serves limited their options to only one or two which really allowed our block to hone in on what they were trying to score with. I was really proud of our effort on the second day of a road trip that's been challenging from the beginning. I hope this means we are starting to mature as a team. That second set run was completely predicated on our ability to vary the depth and location of our serves. And our transition attack was pretty strong after we picked up the initial dig."
[On starting 8-0]
"We don't really look at being 8-0, it's just nice to get a positive start in conference. We will enjoy this road sweep like we do with all other road sweeps… with ice cream. Then we will jump on the plane tomorrow and get back and prepare for our next match."
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