Texas A&M
13-5, 6-4Big 12
Oklahoma
13-6, 6-4Big 12
No. 21 Aggies Suffer Setback to Sooners
Oct 21, 2009 | Volleyball
Oct. 21, 2009
|
|
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Oklahoma notched its second consecutive victory against a ranked opponent and handed No. 21 Texas A&M its first home loss of the season, upsetting the Aggies 25-23, 25-21, 25-23 in front of 1,425 tonight at Reed Arena.
The Sooners, who were facing their fourth consecutive ranked opponent and riding the momentum from a 3-2 victory against No. 19 Baylor on Saturday, improve to 13-6 overall and 6-4 in Big 12 matches and move into a three-way tie with A&M and Baylor for fourth place at the halfway point of the conference season.
The Aggies (13-5, 6-4 Big 12), who entered the match 7-0 in home matches, were unable to get on track defensively and struggled with ball control, which resulted in a sluggish offensive production.
"Our offense didn't seem to have the punch it usually has," A&M coach Laurie Corbelli said. "They answered a lot of our attack patterns with a great defensive effort. I thought we were doing a nice job with our sideout plays, and we had the middles going early. Then something stopped working with our defense or our ball control. We couldn't get the ball to our middles any longer, and that puts a lot of pressure on the outsides."
Oklahoma outhit the Aggies, .257 to .185, with 43 kills in 113 attempts. A&M had 45 kills and took 135 swings. The remainder of the stats were relatively close with the Sooners posting 39 assists, 55 digs, 7.5 blocks, two aces and 52.5 points. A&M finished with 43 assists, 51 digs, 7.0 blocks and 53.0 points.
"Oklahoma put the ball in places on our court that were hard for us to get to," Corbelli said. "They surprise you with second ball set overs. They hit hard off the hands. It wasn't just that we were a step off; they did a nice job against us. The disappointing part is, what we typically can do against something like that, we couldn't find a way to get it done. Oklahoma is an awesome team. Point for point we were right there. We couldn't get strings of points easily, and it seemed to frustrate us."
In the opening set, A&M used a three-point run to build its biggest lead at 16-13, but Oklahoma came back with five unanswered points, including two aces. A&M managed to tie the score five times, the last coming at 22-all. Sooner setter Brianne Barker then got a dump kill, and Francie Ekwerekwu put down an A&M overpass to put the Sooners up, 24-22. Sarah Ammerman kept the Aggies in the set with her sixth kill of the frame but was whistled for a ball handling error on the final play.
Oklahoma jumped out to a 4-1 lead to open the second. The Aggies were fighting from behind for the rest of the stanza and were within two points at 14-12 when Oklahoma went on a 5-0 run. Ammerman ended the rally with a kill, which started a 6-1 scoring spurt for the Aggies. A&M, however, committed one of several untimely service errors and was unable to overcome the deficit before the Sooners closed out the set.
Oklahoma, which narrowly outhit A&M, .317 to .316, in the first set, hit .312 while holding the Aggies to a .114 hitting efficiency in the second set.
The Sooners jumped out to a 7-2 advantage and held a 9-5 lead in the third set when A&M erupted for seven consecutive points, getting kills from Mary Batis, Lindsey Miller and Ammerman, as well as a solo block by Ammerman during the stretch. A&M then committed one of its eight service errors of the match to end the rally.
Ammerman came back with a tip kill, but back-to-back attack errors by the Aggies along with consecutive kills by Caitlin Higgins put the Sooners ahead, 14-13. Ammerman posted a kill and Jennifer Banse had two straight kills to return the lead to A&M at 16-14, but once again the rally ended with a service error.
The Aggies held onto a narrow 19-18 advantage before Oklahoma recorded two kills and a block to take a 21-19 lead. The Sooners maintained the lead and were serving for the match at 24-21. Ammerman and Banse kept A&M alive with back-to-back kills before Sarah Freudenrich sealed the Sooner victory with a kill.
"When this whole team is in it together and everyone is really there to play, they are really hard to beat," Corbelli said. "We proved that against Nebraska and a lot of teams. That`s why were are ranked in the nation. We have a great team, but if we have a few that don't come to play then we're not. It's that way with any team. That's what we mean by we defeated ourselves, because we didn't have our team there, the team we typically rely on to play. That's the team we would have to have to beat Oklahoma."
Ammerman led the Aggies with 13 kills and also added 10 digs for her seventh double-double of the season. Banse, who hit .435, also tallied a double-double, recording 12 kills with a team-high 12 digs. Libero Tori Mellinger reached double figures in digs with 10.
Higgins was the only Sooner to reach double figures in kills with 11. Four players posted double figures in digs for Oklahoma. Suzy Boulavsky led all players with 16, and libero Maria Fernanda added 13. Barker and Bridget Laplante had 12 and 10 digs, respectively, and Ekwerekwu led all players with five blocks.
The Aggies have a bye this weekend and then conclude a three-match home stand Wednesday, Oct. 28 with a State Farm Lone Star Showdown match against No. 2 Texas. The match begins at 7 p.m. and will be nationally televised by ESPNU with Beth Mowins calling the action and Cathy Gregory adding commentary.
