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The Rice Owls’ fast-paced offense proved too much for the Cougar defense to keep up with as Houston lost a 3-1 match to Conference USA rivals Rice on Tuesday night at Fox Gymnasium.
The Owls (16-4, 7-2 C-USA) extended their win streak to six games as they defeated the Cougars (13-9, 5-4 C-USA) in four sets.
After a devastating first set which the Cougars lost 25-16, Houston recovered in the second set with a victory. The teams traded blows until the Cougars went on a 4-0 run, capitalizing from errors by the Owls, to take a 19-15 lead. Houston was able to hold the advantage for the rest of the match and won 25-21. The Owls out-hit the Cougars in the second match, getting 13 kills to Houston’s 11, but the Cougars were able to hold them back with effective blocking.
"(Rice) sets the ball low and quick everywhere, so your blockers have to be more intense with the movements," head coach Bill Walton said. "We practiced for it yesterday, but I don’t think my team responded to the challenge in practice very well.
"They were frustrated, and you could see the same frustration in the first game. Then (in the second set), they got comfortable with the tempo of the game."
Unfortunately, the Cougars could not keep up with the pace in the third set and narrowly lost 25-23. The Cougars managed a 5-0 run to create a 15-14 lead, which they followed up later with a 3-0 run to put the set at 21-19. It seemed like Houston was going to take the match, but two overlap errors cost them two points, and Rice snatched the victory with two well-placed blocks at the end of the set.
"What hurt us was in the third game we had two overlaps, meaning that twice we lined up in the wrong places and gave the team two points," Walton said. "In both cases, we were up, so that’s essentially how Rice tied the game."
In the fourth and final set of the match, the Owls were able to set the pace of the game and take an early lead of 5 points. At match point, the Cougars came back to narrow the lead to 24-23, but were ultimately unable to stop a well-placed kill by the Owls that closed the game.
Senior outside hitter Justine Farmer had a game high 21 kills, while senior setter Kelsey King finished with 42 assists and sophomore defensive specialist Amanda Carson had 18 digs.
Farmer attributes the loss to a slow start by the Cougars.
"We started off down," Farmer said. "We were getting blocked a lot in the beginning, and then we got it back together. But it is hard to come back from five when you are down early against a good team. They have a really fast offense, which we are not used to. It was a learning game."
The Cougars return to action on Friday as they take on Texas-El Paso at 5 p.m. at the Athletics /Alumni Center.
