Tulsa
Oral Roberts
Tulsa Defeats ORU, 3-1 in Cross-Town Match Up
9/18/2007 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Sept. 18, 2007
Box Score
Tulsa, Okla. - It didn't start out like you would draw it up on the chalkboard, however it ended the way you would have drawn it. If you are a Golden Hurricane fan, that is. The University of Tulsa volleyball squad bounced back from its second worst opening game performance of the season to pull off a 3-1 (20-30, 30-17, 30-28, 30-22) victory over cross-town rival ORU on Tuesday night. A crowd of 217 at the Donald W. Reynolds Center witnessed the Golden Hurricane win its 12th consecutive home match. The last time TU lost at the Reynolds Center was to ORU in the home opener last year.
Senior Fabiola Nepomuceno led the TU attack with a career-best 25 kills. Fellow senior Julia Silva posted her 13th double-double of the season with 47 assists and 10 digs. A trio of Hurricane players reached double-figures for digs in the match, led by freshman Nicole Boyle's 13. Junior Malorey Grove also added 10 digs, in addition to Silva's 10. Freshman Emma Ridley carried the Hurricane threw the rocky start of the match, finishing with a season-best 16 kills.
The Hurricane opened the match on the sluggish side of the ledger, finishing with only 11 kills against nine hitting errors and a .051 hitting percentage. Ridley recorded seven of those kills on her own. However, for everything that went wrong for TU in the opening stanza, it all went right in the second game. The bad breaks TU had in game one, went ORU's way in game two. And the Golden Hurricane took full advantage.
In the second game, TU used a 19-8 advantage in kills and outhit the Golden Eagles .472-.034. Nepomuceno provided the spark with eight kills and a .667 hitting percentage for the game. After a TU hitting error tied the score at 4-4, TU Head Coach Ed Allen called an early timeout sensing a momentum swing. Following the timeout, junior Renee Brooks hammered a Silva set to give TU the lead for good.
After the break, the third game of the match was more like the past few matches, as neither team could maintain a sizable lead. ORU worked a 10-6 lead early in the stanza before TU made a 5-0 run to take the lead on back-to-back kills by Ridley. Tulsa's biggest lead of the game was three points, coming at 29-26.
TU blew out to an early 4-0 lead in the final stanza, thanks to a pair of Nepomuceno kills. However, ORU was able to tie the game at 5-5 just moments later. A kill by Nepomuceno ended the Golden Eagles' run and gave TU the lead for good at 6-5. After TU worked its lead to 13-9, ORU was unable to get any closer than three points the rest of the game.
Tulsa, 12-3 on the season, opens Conference USA action on Friday, Sept. 21 by hosting East Carolina at 1 p.m. Fans with a ticket to the TU/OU game that night will also receive free admission to the volleyball match.
