Houston volleyball looked to end their four-match losing streak Friday night as they hosted the Temple Owls in an ACC matchup.
UH (9-10, 1-6) was unable to right the ship as they fell to Temple (13-6, 4-3) in four sets (19-25, 25-19, 17-25, 16-25).
The Cougars battled point for point with the Owls but went 2-8 in the final 10 points of the set as Temple secured the game.
The Cougars looked poised for a rebound and after getting down into a 3 to 10 hole in the second set. They fought back to tie it up 13-13 on their way to winning 25-19 and going into the break tied 1-1.
But they couldn’t match the Owls’ performance coming out of the half and got down big in each of the final two sets.
Redshirt junior Kadi Kullerkann was on a tear, needing less than three sets to pick up her fifth straight 20-kill match before finishing with a team high 27 kills on .351 hitting.
Freshman setter Keandra McCardell continued her hot play with her third straight double-double and sixth of the season with 44 assists and 13 digs.
“To come in, a freshman has a lot to deal with… on top of running a team, she’s doing a great job,” said head coach Kaddie Platt.
“She has got to make a lot of good offensive calls throughout the match in tight situations and when things aren’t going well, and defensively she’s really stepped up.”
Senior libero Natalie Keck led the Cougars with another 20-dig performance this season, picking up her 11th of the season with 23 in the contest.
“Right now it’s a challenging time for the team, definitely we need a win to keep spirits up and keep pushing forward,” Keck said.
“I know we’ll come out and we’ll see the light at some point; it’s just battling through it.”
The Cougars will try to end this long skid as they host the UConn Huskies at 1 p.m. Sunday.
“We need to improve on the mentality of ‘go get it’ that has to be there and being really disciplined in our defense with our block and our back court,” Platt said. “We’re pretty much an outside hitting team, some other people have got to step up and score for us.”
