Texas Tech Pushes No. 2 Texas to Five Sets in Loss

Friday, October 21

Lubbock, Texas

6:00 PM

Texas Tech Athletics

10-13, 0-8

Texas

16-2, 8-0

Texas

Texas Tech

Texas Tech Pushes No. 2 Texas to Five Sets in Loss

October 21, 2016 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Red Raiders take a set against the Longhorns for the first time since 2010.

LUBBOCK, Texas – Texas Tech volleyball put together one of its strongest performances of the season Friday night in front of the 10^th largest crowd (1,223) to watch a volleyball match in United Supermarkets Arena as it took No. 2 Texas to five sets before falling 2-3 (25-21, 18-25, 16-25, 28-26, 7-15).

The Red Raiders took a 1-0 lead after an impressive offensive performance in the first set. Texas, however, would respond in the next two frames to pull in front, 2-1. The Red Raiders would fend off two match points for the Longhorns in the fourth and storm back to send it to a deciding fifth set, where Texas was able to pull out the win.

"Today was a good day," head coach Tony Graystone said. "We took a lot of positive steps. I'm really pleased with the effort. Obviously, we wanted a different outcome, but this was a great launching point, and I'm really happy about it."

Tech came out gunning from the start, using a 4-0 spurt to take a 7-3 lead early on. The Red Raiders outhit the Longhorns .343 to .229 in the frame, led by senior Lauren Douglass who smashed five of her 14 kills in the set, to earn a 25-21 set win that marked the first time Tech has taken a set against Texas since 2010.

"The offense was good," Graystone said. "Our ball control was nice. Our passing kept us going and we were able to split their block. Even though they have a lot of size, when we found a hole we were able to score."

The Longhorns would rebound in the second set, jumping out to a 12-5 lead. Texas Tech committed eight errors in the set and hit just .024 as Texas went on to even the overall score at 1-1.

Texas hit .739 as a team in the third frame and used runs of 8-1 and 6-0 to offset Texas Tech's strong .318 hitting percentage for the set, as the Longhorns would take a 2-1 lead.

The Red Raiders took a major step forward as a team in the fourth set. With the Longhorns serving for the match up 24-22, Douglass came through with a big kill and Texas committed an error to even the score at 24-24. Tech was finally able to break through in a close set and capture a 28-26 win to send the match to the fifth set.

"We called our last timeout when we were down 19-21, and I just asked them to find a way to tie it up and see what would happen," Graystone said "We finally tied it up at 24-24, missed a serve and then fought back and won it at the end. That was a really good moment for us to manage a set against a really nice team to come back and steal something late. Those are the kind of things that good teams do."

Sophomore Sarah Redding led the Red Raiders with a career-high 17 kills in the loss, which is Texas Tech's 11^th straight. To go along with Redding and Douglass, freshman Toni McDougald also finished in double figures with 13 kills, marking the first time since Tech's 3-2 victory over Rice on Sept. 14 that Tech had three players with double-digit kills.

Senior Marguerite Grubb earned her fifth double-double of the season and 16^th of her career, finishing with 44 assists and 12 digs. Sophomore Reyn Akiu, who resumed her role as starting libero after two games with a knee injury, posted 23 digs while junior Ashley Morgan recorded a season-high 13 digs, respectively.

UP NEXT
Another top 10 opponent awaits Texas Tech as No. 6 Kansas comes to United Supermarkets Arena Wednesday, Oct. 26, for a 6 p.m. showdown. The Red Raiders fell to the Jayhawks in straight sets just two weeks ago on Oct. 8 at Horejsi Family Athletics Center.