This Cougars were in for a tough challenge this weekend as they traveled to Hattiesburg, Miss. on Friday to take on Conference USA leader Southern Mississippi.
The Cougars (7-17, 4-5 C-USA) found out why the Golden Eagles are C-USA’s team to beat, dropping the match 3-1 (21-25, 16-25, 25-21, 18-25), and extending their losing streak to four games.
Not much has gone right for the Cougars, and at this point in the season, it would appear the light at the end of the tunnel has faded.’
Continuing on the road to Central Florida (10-12, 2-7) for a Sunday match, it would have been easy for the Cougars to lose hope.
The Cougars responded with a clutch 3-0 (25-22, 25-16, 25-21) win to even their record at 1-1 on the road trip.’
Head coach Bill Walton said the team was frustrated after a match against Southern Miss (19-3, 7-1) that they felt they could’ve won.
‘Southern Miss was a hard loss and (we) were really disappointed that we lost that game,’ Walton said. ‘But against Central Florida (Sunday), we played better and more consistent.’
The first set for UH was about not making mistakes, as the Golden Knights committed nine errors while the Cougars generated 16 points off of them. Walton credits that set with setting the tone.
‘We played really tough,’ Walton said. ‘Jasmine (Terry) had a jump serve, Marluci (Toazzi) had a jump serve; we got a lot of a pressure, and they ended giving up a lot of free balls. We played really well on offense, but we killed because we were just as effective in getting free balls.’
The offense clicked in the final two sets of the short match, with 15 and 13 kills respectively. Individually, Toazzi and Terry each had 10 kills.’
Walton said the offense as a whole played well because of the efforts of the left side.
‘Marluci and Jasmine had a really efficient game,’ Walton said. ‘We got those kills because our left side played really good. Marluci and Jasmine played good on the outside.’
In addition to efficient offense, the Cougars made a superior effort to block the Golden Knights’ attack.’
The Cougars had 18 block assists, led by middle blocker Erin Rice, who had six. Walton said blocking is something the team has wanted to improve on.
‘Well, that’s been something we’ve worked on for a long time, improving our blocking,’ Walton said. ‘That’s been our message ‘hellip; We’ve worked on it before the game, and on the weekend. We were effective in practice, and we were able to execute.’
The road gets tougher next weekend when the Cougars take on Tulsa (15-5, 5-2) and SMU (14-7, 4-3), two teams UH lost to at home earlier this month.
