East Carolina University
12-19, 5-15AAC
Temple
24-8, 15-5AAC
East Carolina Ends Season With 3-0 Loss To Temple
November 27, 2015 | Volleyball
GREENVILLE, N.C. - After East Carolina battled with Temple through two competitive sets Friday afternoon, the Owls pulled away in the third frame to record a 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-15) American Athletic Conference victory inside Minges Coliseum.
The contest marked the end of the 2015 campaign for ECU as the Pirates finish the season with a 12-19 overall record and 5-15 mark in AAC play. With the win, the Owls completed the regular season at 24-8 overall and 15-5 in the league to keep their slim hopes of a NCAA Tournament at large bid alive.
"I want to thank our six seniors for what they have done for East Carolina volleyball the last four seasons," head coach Julie Torbett said. "They have helped us continue to build a program here and I will miss them."
Temple ran an efficient offense, recording 48 kills on 115 attempts with 18 errors - good for a .261 hitting percentage. The teams ended up even in digs with 46 apiece and combined for 13 total blocks.
Irem Asci led all players with 13 kills for the Owls while senior middle hitter Kierra Lee-Dunson's nine kills paced ECU. Junior middle Ashley McRae recorded a .556 hitting percentage off of six kills in nine attempts and senior libero Erika Figueroa collected a match-high 15 digs.
Figueroa ends her Pirate career in third place on the program chart with 1,391 digs. She is also the school's single-season (618) and single-match (37) leader.
A couple of attacking errors early in the first set allowed Temple to build a 7-4 advantage. The Owls responded with three attacking errors of their own to knot the score at seven. ECU would call for timeout trailing 12-8 and that would stop the Temple momentum a bit as a block by the Lee-Dunson sisters capped a 7-5 Pirate run and made the score 17-15. East Carolina fought all the way back and tied the frame at 18 via a kill by sophomore middle hitter Natalie Montini but the Owls were able to edge out to a 23-19 lead before winning the set by four.
Consecutive kills by Montini and Lee-Dunson opened the second stanza and the Pirates forced a Temple timeout when Lee-Dunson put down another kill to put the score at 5-3. A kill by sophomore outside hitter Ashton Mares gave ECU a 10-7 advantage later in the set. However, the Owls rallied to tie things at 11. Temple would eventually push ahead 17-14 and East Carolina used a timeout to regroup. The Pirates came out with a renewed energy and scored seven of the next 10 points to pull into the lead at 21-20. ECU led 23-22 on a kill by Montini but the Owls used two kills and a Pirate attacking error to come away with the two-point set victory.
Temple raced out to a 14-8 lead in the third frame and built leads of 18-11 and 23-13 before closing out the set and match by the 10-point margin.
