ORLANDO— The Knights (25-1, 17-1 AAC) rolled on past Tulane (8-21, 3-15 AAC) on Wednesday night in The Venue. With the 3-0 sweep (25-23, 25-17, 25-20), UCF recorded its sixth consecutive sweep.
"Tulane was hungry and wanted to win, which goes to show that you can't disrespect anyone in the conference we have to go and play who is in front of us," said head coach Todd Dagenais. "Our offensive performance was very consistent. What really got us in the first set is they were very low error, seeing that we recorded 22 kills. I was proud of how we took the challenge of that set and still continued to play well throughout the rest of the match."
McKenna Melville reached Top-10 Kills All-Time in NCAA history passing 2,482. Amber Olson racked up another milestone with 3,800 assists.
Kari Zumach ignited the Knights to start the match off with a kill. Tulane and UCF knotted the game up six times but the Black and Gold ran away with the lead at 6-6 with a 3-0 run with kills from Melville, Heidi Bonde and Zumach, respectively. UCF continued to pace through the set with Melville closing it out with a kill, 25-23.
The Green Wave started off with the lead in set two, but Claudia Dillon answers back with a kill to tie it 1-1. Melville sparked a 3-0 run at 3-3 to take the lead. Once again, Melville shut the door on set two with a kill, 25-17.
Tulane snatched the first point, but Melville responded back with a kill followed by Abby Hansen to take the lead, 2-1. The Green Wave tied it up at 3-3 following a 3-0 run to take the lead. The Black and Gold went on a 5-0 scoring ignited with back-to-back kills from Hansen to regain the lead, 8-5. Dillon wrapped the match up with a kill, 25-20.
Melville led the Knights with 23 kills and tallied up 13 digs. Hansen and Dillion each recorded 9 kills and one block.
The Knights will host Houston on Friday, Nov. 25 for Senior Knight with first serve slated for 5 p.m.