The Cougars closed out a three-game stretch on the road with a win over conference rival Cincinnati Sunday afternoon. Houston swept the Bearcats 3-0 in a closely contested match (25-21, 26-24, 26-24) to improve to 14-14 overall and 6-10 in the American Athletic Conference.
After losing Friday night, Houston came out hungry and quickly jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set. The Bearcats rallied back to tie the game, but the Cougars shutdown their comeback to regain control.
Behind the strength of an active defense, which forced 11 attack errors in the first set alone, the Cougars never let their opponent back into it and easily grabbed the first set win.
In the second set, the Cougars found themselves down 20-24, but got off six unanswered points to steal the set away from Cincinnati.
Coming out of the half, the Cougars again found themselves one point from losing the set. They battled back with three straight kills however, including two by redshirt junior outside hitter Kadi Kullerkann, to tie the game.
After a Cincinnati attack error put Huston up, Kullerkann and junior middle blocker Courtney Smith came up with a huge block to seal the win for the Cougars.
Kullerkann had another dominant offensive performance with 16 kills and a .353 hitting average, marking her 28th double-digit kill game of the 2014 season.
One game removed from notching her 2,000th career dig, senior libero Natalie Keck once again led the team with 15 digs on the afternoon.
Next up for Houston, the team will return home to Athletics/Alumni Center for a match-up with the USF Bulls (11-17, 5-11) on Nov. 21.
