Today the Woman’s Volleyball team traveled to Philadelphia for Game 1 of a 2 game series versus the Temple Owls. The Bearcats were looking to bounce back in the win column after they fell to the UCF Knights two weeks ago in back to back matches. The Bearcats are looking to come out strong and back in the win column to solidify their spot in next weeks AAC Conference Tournament that will be played at Fifth Third Arena here at UC. The starting lineup consisted of Maria Mallon, Armania Heckenmueller, Dimitra Tziarli Adria Oliver, Payton Frederick, Shannon Williams and Madison Waters. The Bearcats looked to throw a different offense at the Owls today as they ran a 5-1 Offense with junior Armania Heckenmueller controlling the offense.
Set 1- The match started back and forth for the first 10 points of the match as the set was tied 5-5. That was before the Owls took a nice 6-0 run to push their lead to 11-6 over the Bearcats. The Bearcats found some momentum shortly after as they looked to erase the Owls early lead when they trailed 14-11. Temple answered right back with another 5-0 run to go up 19-11 over the Bearcats. Those two runs accumulating for 11 points unanswered put the Bearcats in a tough position early in Set 1. The Bearcats fell 25-19 in Set 1.
Set 2- The Bearcats started off strong with three kills to start off Set 2, as Madison Waters and Shannon Williams had found a hole in the Owls defense to start to put balls away for the Bearcats. The Bearcats and Owls traded point for point up until the set was tied 15-15. Then Temple took their run and pushed their lead to 19-16 that started with two Madison Waters attacking errors. The Owls never looked back from there as they ended the set on a 5-0 run taking Set 2, 25-18.
Set 3- The Bearcats found themselves in a 2 set to 0 hole and knew they had to go now if they wanted to come back and turn this match around. Just like the first 2 sets both teams traded point for point until the Owls made their run when it was 12-11 in favor of the bearcats. The Owls went on a 3-0 run before the Bearcats got a kill from Maria Mallon to flip the momentum back to them. The Owls didn’t let that happen though as they scored consecutive points to take a 16-13 lead over the Bearcats before Madison Waters got a kill of her own that started a 3-0 run for the Bearcats, and just like that this set was tied at 16. Temple found some bursts of their offense here and there, but the Bearcats had answers quickly every time to keep this match within reach to try to extend the match one more set. The Owls lead 24-21 before the Bearcats went on a 3-0 run that highlighted two kills from Maria Mallon and next thing you knew we were all tied up at 24-24. Temple had all the momentum as they sparked out to a 25-24 lead before the Bearcats sparked a 3-0 run to keep this match going. In that run it concluded of back to back kills from Maria Mallon and a Temple error and the Bearcats squeezed out Set 3 and won 27-25.
Set 4- The Bearcats started off hot as they had an early 7-5 lead over the Owls. Sarah Norcom had two kills and a service ace in that time frame. The Owls shot back with a 4-0 run of their own, took a 9-7 lead and never looked back. The Bearcats rallied hard to bring it back to a 1 point game at one point before Temple pulled off another 5-0 run to take a 23-16 lead over the Bearcats and the Owls looked to pull off the upset and squeeze out the victory. The Bearcats didn’t go away easy as they went on a 5-0 run themselves that allowed Maria Mallon to record two kills, a service ace from Payton Frederick, as well as two errors from the Owls. This cut the Owls lead from 7 to 3. The Owls ended the match though with a victory after consecutive errors for the Bearcats. The Owls took the match 3 sets to 1.
Overall the Bearcats just allowed the Owls to go on their runs and didn’t have an answer back. As everyone knows volleyball is a sport of runs and if you are going to allow runs you have to have runs of your own and the Bearcats just didn’t have that today in Game 1 of this series. They also ran a 5- 1 offense most the match which is something they haven’t done most the season as Armania Heckenmueller and Ashley Kozer have rotated taking the play calling duties for the Bearcats, but head coach Molly Alvey decided to switch it up heading into todays match. The Bearcats will need to bounce back tomorrow with a win so they can stay in second place ahead of Temple so the Bearcats can guarantee their spot in the AAC tournament that will be played at Fifth Third Arena next weekend. The Bearcats had threw a different lineup out there today which may have helped the Owls since the Bearcats have ran a 6-2 offense all year including both setters Ashley Kozer and Armania Heckenmueller may have taken some adjustments. The Bearcats stat leaders included Maria Mallon who had 14 kills, 16 digs. Shannon Williams had herself a day as she recorded 13 kills, 10 digs and three blocks as well. Freshman Sarah Norcom had 11 kills, two service aces, three blocks and eight digs. Adria Oliver had six blocks assisted as well as a solo block and six kills, a good night defensively for the junior middle.
The Bearcats will look to bounce back tomorrow with a win to solidify their place in the AAC Tournament and look to split the series with the Temple Owls. Game 2 of the series will start at 3 pm on ESPN+ live from Philadelphia.
