NT Volleyball wins first game of season

[OldTimer]

Mean Green Volleyball Opens Season With Victory Over Lehigh

BEAUMONT (8/29/03) -- The North Texas volleyball team (1-0) began its 2003 season with a victory over Lehigh (0-1) on Friday afternoon, defeating the Mountain Hawks 3-0 (30-22, 30-18, 30-18) in its first match at the Lamar Cardinal Classic.

Three North Texas players recorded double-figure kills and two posted double-double’s to lead the Mean Green to the shutout victory. Five of the seven North Texas players that saw action in the match hit at least .400 and the team hit .328, while Lehigh could only manage a .104 attack percentage.

Dating back to last season, six of North Texas’ last eight victories have now been by a 3-0 score. The match also marked the Mean Green’s first season-opening victory since 1997.

"It was a good start to the season," said North Texas head coach Cassie Headrick. "I thought we had some jitters at first, but we settled down and were able to get into a flow. Lehigh is a good defensive team, but our offense was able to get some one-on-one situations and we took advantage of that."

North Texas posted better numbers than Lehigh in attacks, attempts, hitting percentage, assists, service aces, digs and blocks. Senior’s Corina Marginas (Brasov, Romania) and Brieanne Fowler (Odessa, Tex.) both finished with a double-double for kills and digs. Marginas tallied a match-high 14 kills and had 11 digs, while Fowler finished with 10 kills and 10 digs. Brittney Gregory (Klein, Tex.) recorded 12 kills and Kristin Sheppard (Texarkana, Tex.) posted a match-high 40 assists.

Marginas moved into second place all-time at North Texas for career digs with 854 to her credit and needs just 21 more to overtake Jessica Brown (1996-99) as the school’s record holder. Fowler now has 669 career digs and broke into the program’s all-time top-10 list for digs.

Jill Ruskowski (Richmond, Tex.) led North Texas defensively with 15 digs and Gregory was tough at the net with a match-high five blocks.

The Mean Green defense didn’t allow any Lehigh players to reach double figures for kills and held three to a negative hitting percentage. The Mountain Hawks, who won 21 matches last season, were led by Jeannette Singleton with nine kills.

North Texas will wrap up play in the Cardinal Classic on Saturday, playing UT-Pan American at 12 p.m. and host-school Lamar at 7 p.m.

-Click here for match stats-

[CMJ]

First season opening 'W' since 1997? Attaway to get off to a good start this year. If I remember right, we've made big progress in volleyball that last few seasons, here's hoping it continues.