UTA Volleyball Defeats Troy

ARLINGTON, Texas – UT Arlington erased a 2-1 deficit after the third set en route to a five-set victory over Troy at College Park Center on Friday night.

The Mavericks (16-8, 7-5 Sun Belt) dropped the opening frame 25-23 before evening things up with a 25-20 victory in the second set. The Trojans (13-14, 6-7) then put the pressure on UTA with a 25-21 win in the third frame, but ultimately the Mavericks came out on top with 25-19 and 15-12 victories in the fourth and fifth sets.

UTA hit .186 on the night, while holding Troy to a .145 clip. The Mavericks also out-blocked the Trojans 14-11 in the match played in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 757 fans.

Player of the Match

Zhanelle Geathers put together a career-night, registering 16 kills in

the match with one error and a .517 hitting percentage. The redshirt freshman middle blocker also chipped in six blocks and six digs on the night to go along with a service ace.

Stat Leaders

Caitlyn Cooney led the digging efforts for the Mavericks, registering 25 digs. She was aided by Qiana Canete and Jordan Holub who recorded 15 and 12 digs respectively. Canete spurred the Mavericks offensively in the match with a team-high 20 kills to go along with a pair of blocks in her 13th double-double effort of the season. Cassidy Wheeler chipped in 49 assists in the match, to go along with nine digs, five kills, four blocks and a pair of service aces.

Milestone Watch

Cooney moved her way into fourth place in career digs by a UTA player as she passed Jessica Bowlin’s 1,728 digs. The Houston native enters Saturday with 1,753 digs in her time with the Mavs.

Marisah Ingram and Geathers continued to climb up the UTA freshmen all-time charts. Ingram now sits fourth in block assists and seventh in total blocks by a freshman. Geathers now holds the sixth most block assists and eighth most total blocks by a Maverick first-year player.

Quotable

“I really felt good about our chances coming in to tonight, being really sharp and maybe taking it to Troy, but I don’t know why I would think that. We’ve gone five sets against them every time, except once. I don’t know why I expected anything different, but it’s great to come out on top.” – UT Arlington coach Diane Seymour on picking up the victory

“They single blocked me a lot. I just saw the holes and put the ball there and normally Cassidy put me where she saw the holes and where she wanted me to go which helped a lot.” – Geathers on the reason for her success

“A quicker start. We talked about it in the locker room briefly before we got here. I thought we looked pretty sharp in warm-ups and I was surprised when those first ten points we really weren’t playing with as much tenacity as I expected us to be and sharp as we needed to be. I was a little bit surprised by that. That’s the main focus over the course of the next four matches heading into the conference tournament. We need to be sharp in that opening set. It’s important to win the first set.” – Seymour on what needs improve heading into Saturday’s match

Up Next

The Mavericks will return to action on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. as they are set to take on ULM. Fans can purchase tickets for tomorrow’s match at UTATickets.com.

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