The UH volleyball team traveled down the road to Rice (8-8, 2-2) on Thursday night and pushed their rival foes to the limit before coming up short (30-26, 24-30, 28-30, 30-17 and 10-15).
The loss was Houston’s first in conference play and ended the Cougars (7-8, 3-1 C-USA) season high five-match win streak.
Freshman middle blocker Malia Vavao started in place of injured freshman Lucy Charuk and made her presence known early with a block to tie the game at three.
Neither team wanted to take early control as they continued to trade points until UH freshman outside hitter Hannah Sullivan knotted the game at 12 on a kill.
The Cougars put together a run when sophomore outside hitter Ashley Calhoun recorded two consecutive kills followed with a block by sophomore middle blocker Erin Rice. At 17-14 Rice was forced to call a timeout.
More misfortunes followed for the Owls as the Cougars scored eight of the next 10 points to take a commanding 25-16 advantage. Rice made one final push, but the deficit was too much to overcome. Junior outside hitter Justine Farmer ended the match with a menacing kill. Farmer led all players with seven kills through game one.
Consecutive service errors kept Rice just ahead of UH at 9-8 early on in the second game. But with Owl freshman defensive specialist Tracey Lam serving, Rice put together a 5-0 run. She and Calhoun made a block and brought Houston to within four points, but a costly service error by UH all but sealed the deal as Rice went on to take game two 24-30.
The Owls took an early lead in game three, but it was short-lived as the Calhoun-Rice combination teamed up for another block to give UH an 8-7 lead. Things looked to be going along well for UH after a kill by junior outside hitter Barbera Frietas made it 16-11 Houston and forced a Rice timeout. The Owls came out of the break a different team, scoring 11 of the next 16 points to regain a one-point lead 21-22.
Sullivan tried her best to keep the Cougars close after notching several key kills down the stretch, but Rice sophomores Natalie Bogan and Jessie Bouvlasky were just too much as both players registered a game-high five kills and gave Rice University a 28-30 win and a 2-1 lead in the match.
UH meant business in game four as they took a 7-2 lead and had no plans of letting this one slip away. Farmer had a game-high seven kills and a .412 hitting percentage in.
She also finished with a game-high seven digs. Sullivan got into the act later on as she recorded three consecutive kills to make it 27-15 UH. The game ended 30-17 with an ace by Vavao. After leading throughout the game, the Cougars looked to have momentum.
With the home crowd behind them, the Owls scored the game’s first four points and forced Houston to call a timeout. The crowd couldn’t prevent errors, which proved to happen at the most costly times for Rice. A service error followed by a reception error made it 9-7 and put the Cougars within striking distance of winning the match, but UH ran out of juice and fell to the Owls 10-15.
UH is now 3-1 in matches that have gone the maximum five games.
"In the fifth game our hitters looked tight," head coach Bill Walton said. "We just looked tense tonight. It’s easy to play the fifth game when you’re at home. The tension of being on the road in an opposing team’s gym got to us."
Farmer led all players with 28 kills. She also recorded 20 digs for her 10th double-double of the season. Sullivan also had a double-double with 20 kills and 17 digs. Calhoun was close to her first of the season with nine kills and 19 digs.
UH will not play again until Oct. 5 when they’ll travel to Tulsa, Okla. In the mean time, coach Walton wants his team to stay sharp.
