Blazers Fall on Senior Night in Straight Sets

Thursday, November 9

Birmingham, Ala.

7:00 PM

UAB

11-18, 4-9

Florida Atlantic

17-8, 8-5

FAU

UAB

Blazers Fall on Senior Night in Straight Sets

11/9/2017 10:19:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The UAB volleyball team fell to Florida Atlantic 3-0 (28-26, 25-14, 25-20) Thursday night at Bartow Arena. With the loss the Blazers fall to 11-18 and 4-9 in Conference USA.

Before the match UAB honored its five seniors, Gabby Deshotel, Haley Jared, Zahria Richard, Petra Silic and Erika Zembyla.

"Each one of these girls will forever hold a special place in my heart," head coach Kerry Messersmith said. "They all have given so much of their lives not just to us but to the sport of volleyball. They have worked hard to get to this point in their lives and have been incredibly successful. I know they will go on to do great things and I am proud to have been their coach."

As has been the case all season long, it was the seniors that led the way for UAB. Silic led the team in kills with 15, assisted on two blocks and hit a whopping .619. Deshotel scored 10 kills with seven digs a service ace and two assisted blocks.

Zembyla finished with four kills on 13 attempts and had a hitting percentage of .308. She tallied a solo block and assisted on two others. Richard had five kills while Jared finished with two.

Freshman Shelby Holderfield had 34 assists on the night which led the Green and Gold while junior Emily Martinez scored 21 digs. Holderfield now has 664 assists on the year and Martinez has racked up 420 digs.

The Blazers struggled to find its rhythm on offense all night as it hit .279 in the first set, .143 in the second and just .154 in the third set.

Florida Atlantic (17-8, 8-5 C-USA) did not struggle to find its offense as the Owls hit over .300 in the first two sets and hit .171 in the third. The Owls were led in kills by Sydney Nemtuda who had 14. Sigourney Kame and Abbi Reid had 12 and 10 kills respectively for Florida Atlantic.

The first set was a barn burner that had eight ties and saw the Blazers fight off set point four times in a row, six times overall. UAB trailed in the opening set 15-11 but chipped away at the Owls' lead until it tied the match back up at 24-24.

The teams traded points until Florida Atlantic was able to put back-to-back kills together to win the first set 28-26. The Owls controlled the second set throughout and even had a run of seven straight points on their way to a 25-14 set win.

The third set seemed to be going the way of the second as Florida Atlantic took an 18-10 lead. However, UAB dug deep and fought back going on a 7-2 scoring run to cut the lead down to three.

UAB couldn't get the score any closer and the Owls closed the set on a 5-3 run to win the third 25-20 and win the match 3-0.

The Green and Gold will play its final regular season match on the road Saturday at Marshall with a spot in the Conference USA Tournament on the line. The formula for UAB is simple, win and it is in. First serve on Saturday is set for 1 p.m. CT.