Temple sweeps Montana as Griz open Cherry and White Challenge

Friday, September 11

Philadelphia, Pa.

4:00 PM (MT)

Montana

2-5

Temple

5-2

Montana

Temple

Temple sweeps Montana as Griz open Cherry and White Challenge

9/11/2015 10:55:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

Temple opened its own Cherry and White Challenge with a one-sided, three-set victory over Montana Friday evening at McGonigle Hall in Philadelphia, 25-15, 25-23, 25-14.

The Owls, who hit .322, improved to 5-2 while dropping the Grizzlies to 2-5. Montana hit .115 to lose its fifth consecutive match.

Temple posted convincing wins in the opening and closing sets and made the key plays late in set two to pick up its third 3-0 victory of the season.

After Montana had pulled even at 23-23 in the second set on an Owls attack error, Temple got back-to-back kills from Izzy Rapacz and Irem Asci to pull out the win.

Asci led both teams with 14 kills on .267 hitting.

"We faced a very good Temple team tonight that came out and played us well and really exploited our weaknesses," said first-year UM coach Brian Doyon. "We weren't able to connect the way we'd hoped or be in sync the way we'd like to be, so we just didn't have a lot of answers."

Montana generated just 31 kills for the match, no more than 11 in any of the three sets, and that lack of offensive did in the Grizzlies. Temple committed nine of its 13 attack errors in the second set, which allowed Montana to hang around despite hitting .108.

The Owls hit .407 in the first set, .500 in the third.

Seniors Capri Richardson and Hannah Sackett led the Grizzlies with seven kills each, though Sackett's came with seven attack errors. Richardson hit .312 and added a team-high two blocks.

Sophomore Brianna Gardner had five kills and no errors on eight swings to hit .625 off the bench, and junior Michelle Robinson had four kills on .429 hitting. Junior Raegan Lindsey dished out 21 assists.

Montana had just a single service ace and got out-dug by 13.

Sandra Sydlik, last season's American Athletic Conference Setter of the Year, had 34 assists for Temple. Rapacz and Tyler Davis both added nine kills on .300-level hitting.

The Grizzlies will face Duquesne (4-5) at 8 a.m. (MT) and Binghamton (2-6) at 1:30 p.m. (MT) on Saturday. Binghamton picked up its second win of the season with a 3-2 victory over Duquesne on Friday.

"Tomorrow is another day," said Doyon. "We'll start with a very good Duquesne team that hopefully we can match up with a little bit better."