Volleyball Claims Thrilling Match Against North Texas, 3-2

Friday, October 25

Denton, Texas

7:00 PM CT

Middle Tennessee

-913,25 CUSA

North Texas

-128,62 CUSA

Middle Tenn.

North Texas

10/25/2019 10:39:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

By: @MTAthletics

DENTON, Texas—The Middle Tennessee volleyball team defeated North Texas in a nail biter, five set match Friday evening by scores of 25-20, 23-25, 19-25, 25-23, 15-12. The Blue Raiders improve to 9-13 on the season and 2-5 in the conference, while the Mean Green falls to 12-8 overall and 6-2 in the league.

Urte Neimantaite led the attacks for the eight time this season with a total 17 kills on the match. Dora Peonia recorded her tenth double-double on the season finishing with 12 kills and 12 digs, and also tallied two service aces. Taylor Hammill also recorded her tenth double-double with a whopping 52 assists and 11 digs. Senior Bri Tankesley led the Blue Raider defense, tallying 18 digs total. Freshman Amalie Jorgensen nearly doubled her career-high blocks with a total 11 on the match.

The Blue Raiders as a team out blocked the Mean Green 14.0 to 9.0, and finished with a match high .213 overall hitting percentage.

Set-By-Set
The Mean Green got to a 4-1 start in set one with a kill and a few MT errors. However, the Blue Raiders came back with kills from Kayla Henley, Peonia and Hammill to tie it up 7-7. MT then took the lead, 9-7, scoring two with a Peonia service ace and a kill by Amalie Jorgensen. UNT snatched the lead again, but the Blue Raiders tied it up once again at 16-16, and then continued to claim the set 25-20.

The Blue Raiders scored the first point of set two off a Mean Green attacking error, but then lost the lead after back-to-back errors. The two teams battled point-for-point in the entire set that had tied scores on 11 occasions and five lead changes. The final tied score came at 22-22 when UNT broke off and took the set, 25-23.

MT scored the first point again in set three, but the Mean Green immediately tied it up. This set also saw several tied scores, 12 total, and five lead changes. The Blue Raiders took their first lead at 11-11 after an attacking error on UNT, and then again at 13-13. MT had the lead for the last time in the set at 19-18, when the Mean Green went on a 7-0 run to claim the set, 25-19.

In set four, UNT scored first, but the Blue Raiders went on a 3-0 run to take a 3-1 lead, and then another run to lead 6-2. The Mean Green came within two at 8-6, but back-to-back kills from Neimantaite, a service ace from Peonia and a kill by Weidmann gave MT a 12-6 lead. UNT came back and tied it up at 17-17, but never took the lead. The Blue Raiders claimed the set 25-23 with a Peonia kill.

Set five saw 10 tied scores and six lead changes. The Blue Raiders took the first point, but the Mean Green quickly took back the lead. MT gained some momentum when it went on a 3-0 run to take back a 10-9 lead, but UNT tied it up at 11-11, and then took a 12-11 lead. However, the Blue Raiders went on a 4-0 run that included a kill from Henley and two kills from Peonia to seal the deal for MT, 15-12.

Team Notes

Dora Peonia has led the team attacks on nine occasions and has recorded ten double-doubles on the season.
Urte Neimantaite tallied a career-high 19 kills on two occasions, against Tennessee Tech and Marshall. She has one double-double on the season and has led the team attacks on eight occasions.
Neimantaite is ranked 10^th in the conference for her average 3.16 kills per set.
Taylor Hammill recorded her 2,000^th career-assist against Marshall on October 11. She has also recorded ten double-doubles this season. Hammill is ranked third in the conference for her 9.93 assists per set.
Hammill recorded a season-high 52 assists on two occasions and a season-high 18 digs.
Bri Tankesley recorded her 1,000^th dig against UT Martin on October 22. She also recorded a career-high four aces against Alabama A&M and a season-high 26 digs against Marshall.
Tankesley is also ranked ninth in the conference for her average 3.66 digs per set, and co-leads the team in service aces with 19 total.
Kayla Henley has recorded four double-doubles on the season. She also tallied a career-high 19 digs against Western Illinois.
Marley Banton co-leads the team with a total 19 aces on the year.
Mikaela Weidmann leads the team in blocks with 68.0.

Up Next
The Blue Raiders are headed straight to Hattiesburg, Miss. to face the Southern Miss Golden Eagles on Sunday at 1 p.m. CT. Live stats will be available and the game will stream live on C-USA TV.

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