University of North Texas
Illinois State
Mean Green rally for historic comeback win over Illinois State
9/17/2021 2:08:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
NORMAL, IL — Rhett Robinson posted a career high 32 kills and Henrianna Ibarra had 18 digs as North Texas volleyball put together a wild comeback win over Illinois State (22-25, 23-25, 26-24, 25-23, 15-11) from 0-2 down in five sets on Friday afternoon.
The reverse sweep was the first for the Mean Green since an October 22, 2017 win over Charlotte and was just their third such comeback since the 2014 season.
"I thought in the first two sets, we weren't playing aggressive volleyball," head coach Andrew Palileo said. "I just kept telling the team, we need to be more aggressive on our serves. Our first touch kept us in the match, and so I knew as long as the first touch held up that we would crawl back in this thing."
The contest remained tight throughout, with neither team taking any of the first four sets by more than a three point margin. It took 26 points from North Texas in the third set to extend the game.
Robinson initially struggled at the beginning of the match, holding a negative hitting percentage but rapidly turned her performance around in the next four sets to reach a new career high in kills.
"Rhett kept us in a lot of rallies and ended a lot of points," Palileo said. "Once she figured it out (in the second set), she knew what she needed to do and she did it."
Graduate setter Kaliegh Skopal also reached 2,000 career assists in the match, becoming just the seventh Mean Green player to reach the milestone.
"From where she's been, coming in as a transfer to leading our team, and then going through GBS and then coming back and playing, she's definitely earned that milestone," Palileo said.
North Texas plays the second game of their three game weekend series in the Redbird Classic Friday afternoon against Missouri. The match gets underway at 5 p.m.
