University of North Texas Athletics
North Texas Volleyball Sweeps Prairie View A&M
9/26/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Denton (9/26/01) - The North Texas volleyball team (6-7, 1-1) cruised to a 3-0 victory over Prairie View A&M Wednesday night at the Snake Pit, registering a school record .464 kill percentage on its way to 30-13, 30-17 and 30-9 victories.
The Mean Green didn’t make many mistakes in the match and was aided by 16 service aces, tying the fifth most in North Texas history. UNT had 54 kills and only nine errors in 97 attack attempts and only had one reception error. Junior middle blocker Tanya Samples (Nocona, Tex.) posted a match and season-high .632 kill percentage, recording 13 kills in 19 attempts with only one error. Sophomore Corina Marginas (OH; Brasov, Romania) registered a season-high five service aces and Brieanne Fowler (So.; OH; Odessa, Tex.) had a career-high four aces. Senior defensive specialist Brandie Wilkins (Houston, Tex.) tied her career-high in service aces with four and Andrea Hansel (Jr.; DS; Houghton, Michigan) also had two perfect serves.
"Offensively, and I think the stats show this, we did what we needed to do tonight," said North Texas head coach Cassie Headrick. "We were able to put the ball down and gave a good team effort in all three games."
North Texas dominated every aspect of the match, recording more kills (54-23), assists (49-16), digs (46-31), service aces (16-1) and blocks (6-3) than the Panthers. The Mean Green had three players record double-figure kills and Marginas tallied her seventh double-double this season with 12 kills and 15 digs. Fowler accounted for a match-high 16 kills, while Samples led UNT at the net with a match-high five blocks. Sophomore setter Kristin Sheppard (Texarkana, Tex.) set up the Mean Green offensive attack with a match-high 40 assists.
The victory was UNT’s third sweep of an opponent this season. It also knocked off UL Lafayette and UT-Pan American by 3-0 scores earlier this year.
The win came over a Prairie View A&M team that finished runner-up in the SWAC last season. "This is a quality win in that its over one of the top teams in another conference," said Headrick.
North Texas resumes conference play this weekend at Western Kentucky (7-4, 1-0) and UL Lafayette (7-3, 2-0). The Mean Green will play WKU Friday at 7 p.m. and remain on the road Sunday for a 2 p.m. match against UL Lafayette. Western Kentucky was picked to tie for first place in the East Division of the Sun Belt Conference according to the preseason coaches poll, and while the Mean Green knocked off UL Lafayette earlier this season, the Ragin’ Cajuns are in first place in the West Division with a 2-0 conference record.
