The UH volleyball team experienced a great deal of success last season against Tulane and Texas-El Paso, going 4-0 against them.
The Cougars (9-8, 4-2 C-USA) hope to have the same type of success this season starting with Tulane (17-4, 6-1 C-USA) 7 p.m. Friday at the Athletic/Alumni Center.
Houston sophomore middle blocker Erin Rice and junior outside hitter Justine Farmer played pivotal roles in the team’s success last season against the Green Wave.
In those two matches, Rice averaged nearly 11.5 blocks while Farmer put in 15 kills and 9.5 digs.
Rice knows that a couple of wins this weekend could be very beneficial for the Cougars.
"They’re big matches for us, but I guess we look at every match that way," said Rice. If we don’t then we’re not going to get anywhere in conference."
Freshman middle blocker Lucy Charuk, who is second on the team in total blocks and third in kills, has been sidelined with a foot injury since Sept. 23.
Tulane has been one of the hotter teams in the conference, winning eight of its last nine matches.
It’s also one of two teams to have six victories in conference play, Marshall being the other.
The Green Wave’s top two offensive players are international imports junior outside hitter Sara Radosevic from Croatia and sophomore outside hitter Ksenija Vlaskovic from Serbia.
They will look to improve upon the numbers they put up last season against the Cougars when Radosevic registered nearly 15 kills and 10 digs while Vlaskovic averaged 13 kills and 10 digs.
1 p.m. on Sunday the Cougars will play host to UTEP. The Miners are looking up at everyone else in the conference standings (6-12, 0-7 C-USA).
Houston’s Farmer is from El Paso and was heavily recruited by UTEP coming out of high school, and rightfully so after averaging 18.5 kills and 23.5 digs last season against them.
Although the Miners are winless in conference Farmer knows that her team cannot look at them as an easy win.
"We can’t come out there thinking that we’re going to stomp all over them," Farmer said. "We can’t play down to their level. We went into conference play against Central Florida and they really weren’t ranked very high. Before the match I told the team we can’t take them lightly and I don’t think we’ll take UTEP lightly either."
UTEP will be led by senior outside hitter Christie Murphy and sophomore outside hitter Amy Sanders.
Last season against UH Sanders and Murphy averaged 15 and 14 kills, respectively.
Farmer knows that a couple of wins this weekend could put the Cougars in a favorable position in the conference standings.
"If we win these matches we’ll be one of the higher teams in the standings," Farmer said. "We’ve already lost two conference matches and I don’t want to lose another one all season."
