All it took was three sets for UH to move to 3-0 in conference play. Dispatching Cincinnati with relative ease, the squad remains tied for first place with Sunday’s opponent, Louisville, in the American Athletic Conference standings.
“It felt really good to come together as a team,” said senior defensive specialist Meredith Ware. “We’ve been trying to work on that for a few weeks and it feels like we were really united today. Our communication was really good.”
The three matches it took for UH to achieve victory were marked by stellar defensive plays that kept Cincinnati under 20 points in the final two sets of the sweep and forced the Bearcats into making more errors than kills and being saddled with a -.056 hitting percentage.
Offensively, the the Cougars were paced by freshman offensive hitter and right side Sarita Mikals, who put 14 kills with .500 hitting percentage.
“It was amazing,” Mikals said. “It was our first home conference game and having all this support out here just made it that much better before we even took the floor. We’ve been working hard and hard work just pays off.”
The hard work manifested itself in the form of six team blocks and 79 total attempts. While their on-the-court numbers were positive enough, sophomore middle blocker Emily Howard also credited the consistently raucous Cougar fans.
“It’s a great environment here,” Howard said. “We were just confident and stuck to the game plan. That’s what we really wanted to do — just stay focused the whole time.”
Head coach Kaddie Platt noted the match as a good team win and a solid morale booster for their next match against Louisville.
“It was a good win,” said Platt. “The team played well and was very disciplined and stuck to the game plan.”
The Sunday match against Louisville will be at the Athletics/Alumni Center at 1 p.m.
