Sports editor Jaralynn Tammi Morellano says the Golden Hurricane overcame UTSA’s early leads.
The University of Tulsa volleyball team was lighting up a fire of its own on Friday night as it took down the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As students and their families took to Dietler Commons to wish off our football team to its homecoming game, the Golden Hurricane volleyball team was kicking off a weekend of home victories in the Donald W. Reynold Center. This win pushed its conference record up to 6-3, giving it a 14-7 overall record while UAB was knocked down to 3-6 AAC record (8-12 overall).
The game started out in Tulsa’s favor, the Golden Hurricane securing an early lead in the first set. It held the lead with a tight grip, tying with UAB only once. This tie came from a few well-formed plays from the Blazers, able to take a scoring run to bring the set to 8-8. Just as quickly as the tie occurred, Tulsa retaliated and silenced any hope with a classic, untouchable kill from Beth Bayless. Her fire power pushed Tulsa to a lead of 11-8. It continued to stay one-step ahead of the Blazers just as the set came around 21-19. Sparing no time or feelings, it took the rest of the set by storm to close out 25-19.
The Blazers tried to make a comeback in the second set, its passion taking it to an early lead to take control of the match. Tulsa broke its scoring run and with Marta Pecalli at the service line, the Golden Hurricane had both a reliable start to a play along with a solid back-court defense. Tulsa began to hit a stride, but it was broken up by a kill served up by Blazer Abby Jones. Despite the efforts by the Blazers, the Golden Hurricane ultimately put this set in the bag to bring the match 2-0.
The third set brought about deja vu as the Blazers took on another early lead. However, Tulsa shut these efforts down before it could do any damage and controlled the set after the Blazers’ short segment of control. The Blazers stayed close behind the entire time, but it was unable to overtake the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa closed out the set 25-18 to take victory.
The night was sweetened even further, the volleyball taking time out of the scheduled game to recognize past Golden Hurricane players. After serving up a decadent win to the alumni, Tulsa recognized setter Brayden Hipp who achieved 1000 career assists in the match prior. She was presented with a custom volleyball highlighting her achievement. The night was filled with achievements, as this game also marked a career milestone for Pecalli. During this match, this libero hit 2000 career digs in the second set whilst playing with a reception percentage of 1.000.
Though these players were not hitting any career moments this night, shoutouts must be made to Tytiana Johnson, who gave way to seven out of 11 total team blocks put up by the Golden Hurricane that night. As for the offensive star of the night, outside hitter Tatum Tornatta was able to lead the Hurricane with 12 kills. Bolstering the offensive fire were Bayless and Rachel Brown, both contributing seven kills. If that wasn’t enough to lead to a blowout, then the Golden Hurricane’s win was secured by the four service aces it dished out that night.
This victory only fired up the Golden Hurricane for the weekend to come and provided great energy to its match against Memphis on Sunday. The team continues to stay at home and it will host Wichita State in a Friday night match at 6 p.m. on Nov. 1. Both teams will then travel to Wichita to hash it out once more. It will surely be a shocking weekend for Tulsa.
