The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
UCF
UAB Holds Off UCF For Friday Night Road Win
10/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 2, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The UAB volleyball team went the distance Friday night at UCF and emerged with a 3-2 (25-22, 18-25, 25-22, 22-25, 15-12) Conference USA victory.
UAB players finished with career-highs in virtually every aspect of the five-set match. Offensively, Andrea Lalic posted a career-high 21 kills. Defensively, Heather Thomas managed a career-best 29 digs. And at the setter position, Alison Woods set a career-high with 58 assists while also adding 13 digs on the way to her seventh double-double of the year.
With the victory, UAB improved to 3-1 in C-USA action and evened its overall record at 9-9. UCF dropped its seventh straight contest to fall to 8-9 (0-4 C-USA).
UAB is now 2-0 in conference road matches and will remain on the road to face Southern Miss on Sunday at 1 p.m. CT. The Blazers also improved to 3-2 in five-set matches with Friday's win.
"I was pleased with the way we competed tonight," UAB head coach Kerry Messersmith said. "We made a lot of errors and we didn't play a stellar match, but our competitiveness saved us. Earlier this season, when we found ourselves in tough matches, we weren't competing like we did tonight."
After UCF forced a fifth set, UAB senior attacker Savannah Pegg came alive in the final frame with five of her 16 kills. The Blazers never trailed in the last set, building a four-point lead on a Michelle Uzoh kill at 9-5 and again on a UCF error at 12-8. The Knights clawed within one at 13-12 before Pegg's final kill of the night followed by a block from Woods and Patty Paniagua sealed the win.
Uzoh finished with 11 kills on the night, reaching double-figures in that category for the third time in the past five matches. Sam Serley also had eight kills for UAB.
For UCF, Erin Campbell led all players in the match with 22 kills and also managed 28 digs as she posted one of three double-doubles for the Knights. Kristin Fisher had 20 kills and 17 digs, while Andee Youngblood had 56 assists and 15 digs. UCF libero Meredith Murphy led all players in the dig category with 33.
"UCF's outside hitters gave us problems all night," Messersmith said. "And defensively, they did a great job against our middles and really caused some problems for us."
UAB won Friday night despite being out-hit, .212 to .170. But the Blazers finished with 29 more attack attempts than UCF and posted eight service aces to just one for the Knights. In the deciding set, UAB won the attack percentage battle, .242 to .135.
