With the Golden Eagles trailing Memphis, 2-1, the Tigers came out to post a score of 21-14 in game four. The team rallied back and ended the match on a 16-6 run.
The momentum did not stay with the team in game five as Memphis came out with the 15-12 victory, in a game where the score was tied a total of four times.
The Golden Eagles’ big comeback in the fourth game did not burn the team out in game five, according to sophomore Theresa Coughlin and freshman Jaime Mueller.
“I don’t think we were burned out after the fourth game,” Coughlin said. “The fifth game we were unable to get the points early on and had to keep going back and fourth with them (Memphis).
“The fourth game is when we really came out and started to play our type of game. I think in the first few games we really weren’t playing our type of volleyball. In the fifth game they just came out and played better and we made a few mistakes.”
Leading the way for the Golden Eagles in the kill department were the usual suspects in junior Erin Freer and Coughlin, who tallied 21 and 22 kills respectively. Senior captain Gemma Greer led the team with 59 assists, while Freer and freshman Jaime Mueller were the two Golden Eagles who finished with double-digit attack numbers.
Saturday, the Golden Eagles took on the Billikens of St. Louis, who came into the match with a record of 8-15 (1-5 in Conference USA). This match totaled four games as the Golden Eagles came out on top with the victory.
Leading the way on Saturday in terms of double-digit attackers were senior Ann Lopata who finished with 20 kills, Coughlin who came out of the match with 17 kills, Freer who ended with 12 and junior Erica Heisser, who tallied 12 kills. Greer again topped the leader board in assists with 58 and five members finished with double-digit dig numbers.
“We wanted to go out and beat St. Louis in three games,” Coughlin said. “It wasn’t because we were tired from Friday — we just wanted to keep our confidence up and made sure we held onto the win.”
Because they split the two matches last weekend the Golden Eagles did not make a jump in the conference standings, but this weekend they will be at it again as they travel to take on Houston, who went split a pair of matches over the weekend as well. They beat South Florida and fell to UAB. Saturday the Golden Eagles will be doing battle with TCU, who like Houston played South Florida AND UAB, but beat the Blazers and fell to the Bulls.
With a sweep of games this weekend, the Golden Eagles could jump two spots in the conference standings.
Coughlin feels the key to this weekend will come down to taking an early lead in both matches.
“This weekend we are going to have to focus on getting points early in both of the matches,” she said. “It is very difficult to come back from a big deficit. What we have to do is to be on top of both games from the beginning.”