December 01, 2000
The 23rd-ranked Texas A&M volleyball team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Volleyball Championships on Friday with a 15-6, 15-1, 15-8 sweep of the Houston Cougars before an estimated 855 fans at the Alex G. Spanos Center on the campus of the University of the Pacific.
The Aggies improve to 20-8 on the year with the win, marking the sixth consecutive season that A&M has reached the 20-win plateau. In addition, the Aggies have swept Houston the last seven times the former Southwest Conference foes have met on the volleyball court. The Cougars, runners-up in Conference USA, end a successful campaign at 21-11.
"We're very excited about the win," said head coach Laurie Corbelli, who improved to 7-0 in NCAA first-round matches at A&M. "We felt like we started out a little jittery and worked hard to work through it. Once we did that, we got into a rhythm and played how we know we can play."
Houston held its only lead of the match at 4-2 in the first game, but the Aggies tied the game at four and then went up by one on a Jennifer Wittenburg attack error. A&M then rattled off six consecutive points to take a comfortable 11-4 lead and, after UH closed the gap to five, the Aggies got two kills from Michelle Cole and one from Brandi Mount to serve for the game. Cole and Heather Marshall teamed up to block Stephanie Heiskell and give A&M a 15-6 win.
Game two was all Texas A&M, who hit .525 en route to a 15-1 victory. The Cougars were down five points before they scored their only point on one of Wittenburg's team-high eight kills. Marshall put down two of her nine kills on the night for the final two points of the game.
The Aggies carried that momentum into the third game, jumping out quickly to a 6-0 lead. Houston rallied to pull within two before A&M extended its advantage to six at 10-4 on the strength of three Cole kills. UH again fought back and closed the margin to three before Erin Gibson served the Aggies to the 15-8 win, with the last point coming on a bad set by Heiskell.
Gibson had one of the better performances of her career, posting 19 kills en route to a career-best .444 hitting percentage and adding 15 digs. Cole, playing in her home state, hit .440 along with 13 kills and 14 digs.
Houston had no players in double figures in kills, as the Aggies held the Cougars to a .108 hitting percentage on the night. As a team A&M hit .376, posted 56 kills to UH's 25, out-dug the Cougars 62 to 43, and out-blocked Houston seven to five.
"I thought we played great defense tonight," Corbelli said. "That's one of our trademarks. We also worked hard on our transition offense. We did a good job of countering Houston's strengths."
A&M advances to meet 7th-ranked Pacific (27-3) on Saturday for the right to go to the round of 16. The host Tigers swept Oral Roberts in their first-round match-up. First serve at the Spanos Center is set for 9 p.m. (CST).