East Carolina Falters At Temple, 3-1

Friday, October 11

Philadelphia, Pa.

7:00 p.m.

East Carolina University

13-5, 1-4AAC

Temple

10-6, 1-4AAC

ECU

Temple

Photo by: Rob Goldberg

October 11, 2019 | Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – East Carolina dropped an American Athletic Conference match to Temple in four sets (21-25, 28-26, 22-25, 13-25) Friday night inside McGonigle Hall.

The Pirates dip to 13-5 overall and 1-4 in league matches while the Owls picked up their first conference victory of the season to improve to 10-6 and 1-4.

Juniors Sydney Kleinman and Bri Wood led the offense with 19 and 17 kills apiece and collected 12 digs apiece to complete double-doubles. Junior Shelby Martin also posted a double-double of 23 assists and 10 digs. A trio of Temple players put down 16 kills while Naomi Janetzke also recorded 14 digs.

The Owls ended with the advantage in kills (63-53), hitting percentage (.289-.189), digs (75-57) and total blocks (7.0-5.0).

East Carolina got off to a nice start in the opening set, building an 11-7 advantage after a kill by Wood. Temple rallied however, eventually pulling ahead 17-15 and forcing a Pirate timeout. Down 20-17, ECU drew within 22-21 but could not complete the comeback as the Owls won it by three.

Temple took control early in the second and led 6-3. Playing catch up, the Pirates eventually knotted the score at 10 following an attacking error. They couldn't keep the momentum going, however, as the Owls grabbed a 19-15 edge on a ball handling error. East Carolina fell behind 22-18 later on before making one last push. Trailing 24-22, the Pirates used a kill by Wood and a Temple attacking error to break even at 24. ECU faced another set point after committing a service error, but a big block by Kaiya Heyliger-Powell and Toya Osuegbu squared things once more. Finally, with things tied at 26, Kleinman powered down consecutive kills to give the Pirates the stanza.

East Carolina fell into an early 10-3 hole in the third frame but was able to rally within 12-10 off the serve of Sydney Hall. A huge stuff by Kleinman and Osuegbu tied the score at 16 before the Owls got a kill to grab the lead back. Temple would not relinquish the upper hand, winning the set by three.

The fourth was back and forth to begin, but the Owls began to pull away midway through and ended the match winning the frame by double digits.

ECU is back on the court Sunday for a Noon matchup at Connecticut.