Volleyball Splits Pair on Opening Day of Home Tournament

Friday, September 11

Memphis, Tenn.

2:00 PM

University of Memphis

5-2

Arkansas-Pine Bluff

0-9

UAPB

Memphis

Photo by: Joe Murphy

Volleyball Splits Pair on Opening Day of Home Tournament

Sep 11, 2015 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

Memphis sweeps UAPB but falls to Auburn.

By: Tammy DeGroff

MEMPHIS – The University of Memphis women's volleyball team (5-3) split a pair of non-conference matches in its home opening day on Friday. The Tigers swept Arkansas-Pine Bluff (0-9), 3-0, then fell to Auburn (6-2) in the nightcap.

"We just didn't pass very tonight," Head Coach April Jauregui said. "Kudos to Auburn, they have a good serving team and stay aggressive, that's one thing we scouted on film. They are aggressive offensively and they really make you just have to play and we when we settled in, we hung with them, but as a whole, our passing just wasn't very solid tonight."

Memphis trailed early in the opening set, but took their first lead of the night when senior setter Veronica Zimmerman dumped the second touch and gave Memphis a 17-16 lead. Following an Auburn timeout, Memphis went on a 3-1 run and stretched their lead to 20-17 before errors snuck in. The next seven possessions saw Memphis called for a lift, an attack error, a service in to the net and a blocking error on a ball that was sailing out of play, allowing Auburn to retake the lead at 22-21.

Summer Morgan and McKenzie Hayes both downed kills to keep tying up the score, first at 22, then 23, but Emily Klitzke downed a kill and Jesse Earl aced the Tigers' serve-receive to grab the first set, 25-23.

Memphis tried to get a cleaner start in the second set, but again found themselves quickly in the hole, down 7-1, forcing Jauregui to take an early timeout. It looked like Memphis may not be able to close the gap any closer than five Morgan again tried to get her team going, downing a kill that started a 5-0 Memphis run forced Auburn to use both of their timeouts and found the Tigers down just 23-22 following an Auburn attack error. But Courtney Crable downed back to back kills for Auburn, allowing the visiting Tigers to hit the locker room up 2-0 at the break.

Auburn capitalized on its strengths in the third set. They hit .409 in the third set and tallied five service aces, closing the match on an 8-0 run for a 25-12 third set final margin of victory. With the win, Auburn improves to 6-2 on the season following their 3-0 win over Little Rock earlier Friday afternoon.

Catlin Lilly led Memphis with12 kills, adding a team-high eight digs, while Morgan added 10 kills and hit .600 for the match. Memphis hit just .175 for the match and was haunted by seven Auburn service aces, four blocking errors and five ball handling errors. Memphis out-blocked Auburn, 6-3, but posted just three service aces of their own in the loss.

Breanna Barksdale led all players with 14 kills. Courtney Crable finished with nine kills, including the last two of the night to help Auburn to the road win.
Memphis plays two more matches at home on Saturday, facing Tennessee Tech at noon and Little Rock at 7 p.m. Auburn finishes its tournament run with a single Saturday match, facing Tennessee Tech at 4 p.m.

Memphis 3, UAPB 0
Memphis posted nine service errors and held UAPB (0-9) to a -.053 hitting percentage in a 3-0 win (25-8, 25-7, 25-14) in the Tigers' home opener, Friday. Oluchi Agomuo finished with a game-high 10 kills, while Catlin Lilly added eight kills. Junior McKenzie Hayes had six of Memphis' nine service aces, adding nine digs and seven kills. Sophomore setter Faith Myers led the Tigers with 34 assists in the match in her first career start while Mady Ruhlman finished with a game-high 12 digs.