University of North Texas Athletics
Mean Green Volleyball Sweeps New Orleans
10/11/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
DENTON (10/11/02) - The North Texas volleyball team (9-12, 4-1) won its fourth match in its last five outings Friday night at the Snake Pit, defeating New Orleans (7-11, 1-2) 3-0 (30-20, 30-18, 30-26) in a Sun Belt Conference West Division match.
The victory improves the Mean Green’s league record to 4-1, its best ever start in conference play through five matches. North Texas entered its match against the Privateers in second place in the West Division.
The Mean Green ran away with the first two games, winning each by a double-figure margin. With the score 24-23 in favor of North Texas in the third game, the Mean Green went on a 5-1 run to gain a 29-24 advantage and go on to win the match comfortably.
The Mean Green dominated almost every aspect of the match, finishing with more kills, a higher hitting percentage, more assists, more digs and more blocks. The Mean Green hit a blistering .392 for the match, including a .452 game-one percentage, while holding New Orleans to a .095 hitting percentage. The Privateers made 23 attack errors, but North Texas also blocked 10 UNO attacks and had 46 digs.
"We beat a good team tonight and it is a confidence booster," said North Texas head coach Cassie Headrick. "We came out focused and did what we worked on in practice this week. We focused alot on blocking and I thought we did a good job reading their angle of approach tonight. We limited their shots through our serving and I thought that frustrated them as well."
Corina Marginas (Jr.; OH; Brasov, Romania) led the North Texas attack with 16 kills and 13 digs, both match highs. The junior outside hitter also finished with four blocks, but senior Tanya Samples (Sr.; MB; Nocona, Tex.) led the Mean Green at the net with a match-high five blocks. All eight North Texas players that saw action in the match finished with at least one dig and six of those eight recorded at least one block.
Also piling up a double-figure kill total was Jill Ruskowski (Jr.; OH; Richmond, Tex.), who finished with 10 and narrowly missed a double-double with nine digs. Kristin Sheppard (Jr.; S; Texarkana, Tex.) directed the North Texas offense with a match-high 40 assists.
North Texas hosts South Alabama in its fifth consecutive Sun Belt Conference West Division match on Sunday at 1 p.m.
