Volleyball: Tulane drops five-set clash against ECU

Tulane volleyball suffered a heartbreaking loss against ECU, Friday night in Greenville, NC, losing 3-2 (19-25, 25-18, 19-25, 25-19, 14-16). The Green Wave fall to 12-7 overall, 1-5 The American.

How It Happened
Tulane could not find its groove in the opening set, losing 25-19. The Green Wave gave up eight unanswered points early on, as ECU jumped ahead, 14-4, to open the set. Tulane fought hard to close the gap, narrowing ECU’s lead to 23-19, but could not complete the comeback, as it dropped the first set.

The Green Wave came out strong in set two, breaking open an early 10-4 lead. After calling a timeout, ECU went on an 8-2 run to tie it up at 12 apiece, but Tulane was undeterred. The Wave fought off the Pirates to claim the set, 25-18.

Tulane kept it close to start the third, as the teams were tied at 10 apiece after exchanging points. ECU, however, went on to outscore Tulane 7-1, taking a 17-11 lead, and the Green Wave could not recover from the deficit, dropping the third set, 25-19.

Junior middle hitter Hannah Shaw and junior middle hitter Dayna Kern each put in tremendous effort to give the Green Wave a fourth set win. Shaw notched seven kills on the set, while Kern notched six, as Tulane won the set, 25-19, to force a decisive fifth set.

ECU opened set five on a 4-1 run, but Tulane came back to tie it up at five. Tulane was first to make it to match point, leading ECU 14-13, but a service error by the Green Wave shifted the momentum, as ECU scored three unanswered to win the match.

Shaw finished the match with a double-double (16 kills, 10 digs), while freshman outside hitter Markenzie Benoit and freshman right side hitter Kristen Thompson led the team with 10 kills each.

Quote
“ECU played well, and we’re on the road and we battled, giving ourselves several chances to win this game,” head coach Jim Barnes said. “We were serving for match point, and whenever you get that opportunity you really have to take advantage of it. We made a service error in that situation, but there were a lot of other little things that we could have done better to pull away from this team. We outplayed them for most of the night, so it’s tough not getting the win, but I think we learned a lot from the match.”

Up Next
Tulane travels to Cincinnati for a 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15 match against the Bearcats. Cincinnati comes off a 3-1 win against Houston 3-1. Tulane dropped both its matches against Cincinnati last season.

Season ticket packages for the 2017 season are on sale now. Tickets may be purchased by calling 504-861-WAVE(9283), logging onto TulaneTix.com or visiting the ticket office at the James W. Wilson Jr. Center.

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