Tulsa
Houston
Volleyball Tops Houston in Five Sets, Wins Second Straight
10/12/2014 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Oct. 12, 2014
Box Score
| Box Score 
TULSA, Okla. - Senior Valerie El Houssine recorded 21 kills and 21 digs, and sophomore Erica Bohannon added 20 kills to lead the Tulsa volleyball team to a 3-2 (25-16, 27-29, 23-25, 25-14, 15-12) victory over American Athletic Conference rival Houston Sunday afternoon at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
The Golden Hurricane overcame a 2-1 deficit to win the final two sets, and pick up its second straight victory to improve to 10-7 overall and 2-4 in The American. Sophomore Brooke Berryhill tallied 20 digs, and senior Bailey Clampitt recorded 53 assists and 12 digs for TU.
Kadi Kullerkann recorded a match-high 22 kills, and Natalie Keck had 23 digs to lead Houston, which fell to 9-9 overall and 1-5 in The American.
"It's always nice to come back from down 2-1 to win," Tulsa Head Coach Ryan Wills said. "We played really well in the fourth set. We sided out at 66 percent and held them to 53 percent in the fifth set. If you do that in any set, you're in a good spot. Brooke Berryhill did really well in serve-receive, maybe the best she's done all year, and that really helped stabilize some things as we struggled through other parts of our game. We did a much better job offensively, and on defense, we did decent job in holding them to .142. More than anything, I'm really happy with the way we competed."
The Golden Hurricane trailed 3-2 early in the fifth set, but scored consecutive points to take a 4-3 lead, and later broke a 6-6 tie with three straight points. Tulsa extended its lead to 13-8, then withstood a UH rally that cut it to 14-12, to win the final point and close out the match.
Junior Ashley Hooper tallied 11 kills and freshman Ashton Anderson recorded 13 digs for the Hurricane, which hit .248 (63-23-161) in the match and totaled 84 digs, 9.0 blocks and five service aces. Houston hit .142 (58-32-183) with 68 digs, 10.0 blocks and five aces.
Tulsa used an 8-3 run at the end of the first set to break open a 16-13 lead to win 25-16. TU took the lead for good at 9-8 after a kill by El Houssine. The Hurricane hit .206 in the frame, tallied 19 digs and converted 11 of its 15 sideout opportunities, while holding the Cougars to a .049 attack percentage. El Houssine and Hooper each tallied five kills, and Berryhill added six digs.
The second frame featured 15 ties and five lead changes, as Houston hit .262 with 17 kills, while Tulsa hit .200 with 16 kills. The Hurricane led 19-17, before the Cougars scored four straight points to move ahead, 21-19. Following with three consecutive points, TU retook a 22-21 advantage. Houston then scored three straight, and the teams alternated points until a pair of UH kills ended the set, 29-27.
Houston scored the last six points of the third stanza to win 25-23. Tulsa took a 10-5 lead, and led 19-13, before the UH comeback. Bohannon tallied six kills in the set, while EL Houssine had four kills and four digs.
Tulsa came back to win the fourth set, 25-14. TU hit .429 with 14 kills and just two attack errors, while converting 80 percent (12-of-15) of it sideouts, and holding Houston to a .029 attack percentage. The score was only close at 3-2, just before the Hurricane scored four straight points. Leading 15-11, Tulsa used a trio of three-point runs to extend its lead to 23-13, on its way to scoring 10 of the final 13 points of the frame. El Houssine led TU with six kills and five digs to help Tulsa force the deciding set.
The Golden Hurricane is back in action Wednesday when it plays host to American Athletic Conference rival SMU at 7 p.m. at the Reynolds Center.
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