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SAN ANTONIO -- Rice used a strong start to post a three-set win (13-25, 25-27, 21-25) over UTSA volleyball in a battle for first place in the Conference USA standings, on Friday night, in front of 1,109 – the seventh-largest crowd in program history – at the Convocation Center.
UTSA (16-6, 8-2 Conference USA) fell to the first-place Rice (18-4, 9-0 C-USA) Owls in a battle of the top two teams in the conference. It marked just the second loss of the year in C-USA play for UTSA, which also fell on Sept. 28 at Rice.
The Roadrunners were stymied offensively during the match, with Rice taking the first set with a strong start and then earning a second-set win with two consecutive points to snap a 25-25 tie. UTSA hit .128 in the first set as a team before a .019 mark in the second stanza.
UTSA senior setter Amanda Gonzales earned her team-leading eighth double-double of the year. Gonzales had 25 assists and 14 digs, with UTSA also getting six kills from freshman Hannah Lopez, and six from Brianna McCulloch and seven from junior Kara Teal. Hannah Froeschl added four kills with Kirby Smith notching six. Senior libero Shelby Williams had eight digs with Emily Ramirez owning 10. Freshman Kenedi Rutherford had eight kills.
UTSA will return to action on Sunday, hosting Western Kentucky at 1 p.m. CT at the Convocation Center.
Rice opened the match strong, notching the first three points of the match before Smith finished a kill on the near side of the net. Lopez notched her first kill to cut the lead to 4-2 but Rice took four of the next five points to take an 8-3 lead into a UTSA timeout. Lopez earned two of the next three points and McCulloch's first kill cut the lead to 10-5. Rice then raced out to a game-changing rally, with UTSA getting points from McCulloch, Kenedi Rutherford and Froeschl while falling behind 21-9. Froeschl's kill in the middle of the net got UTSA into double digits, Ramrez had an ace for the 13th points from the Roadrunners, but Rice finished off the win, 25-13.
Rice notched the first two points of the second stanza before UTSA was able to cut the lead to 4-3 behind a kill from Smith. Rutherford cut the lead to 8-5 with Rice extending the lead to 10-6. Consecutive points on kills from Froeschl and Teal cut the lead to 11-9 with UTSA taking advantage of Rice attacking errors to cut the lead to 14-13 and force an Owls timeout. Rice took the next three points to force UTSA into its first timeout, trailing 17-13. UTSA got consecutive points from Rutherford and Teal before Rice took a 23-19 lead into the final UTSA timeout. The Runners took the next three points, behind Lopez and an ace from Ashley Dominguez to force a Rice timeout with the Owls leading 23-22. The Runners earned the next three points out of the timeout to take a 25-24 lead but Rice evened it at 25 before finishing off the narrow win with two straight points.
The teams traded the first three points before consecutive kills from Smith gave UTSA its first lead of the match, 4-3. Points were traded with the set tied at six, seven and eight before Rice took an 11-8 lead. UTSA finished a long rally with a kill from Teal to cut the lead to 11-9. Rice then raced out to a 16-10 lead, around a timeout from UTSA, to take control of the set. UTSA cut the lead to 19-16 and to 22-20 to force a pair of Rice timeouts but the Owls were able to edge the Runners for the third-set win.
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