Aug. 30, 2003

BEAUMONT, TX-The third time was the charm for The University of Texas-Pan American's volleyball in their first tournament of the season at Lamar University's Subway Cardinal Classic Saturday.

The Lady Broncs defeated Lehigh in five games, 30-21, 30-22, 29-31, 28-30 and 15-10 behind a record-setting performance by senior outside hitter Jaclyn Muszynski (Walnut, CA/Walnut HS) at the Montagne Center. North Texas defeated UTPA in Saturday's first match in four games, 30-27, 30-26, 25-30 and 30-20.

Texas-Pan American earned their first victory of the 2003 season as Muszynski (Walnut, CA/Walnut HS) became the Lady Broncs' career leader in both kills and digs. Against Lehigh, Muszynski led Texas-Pan American with 26 kills and 16 digs. She now has 1213 kills during her career at UTPA, and passed Tanja Thomas, who had 1183 kills and graduated in 1991. Muszynski has 1025 digs for her career, one more than Marie Velasquez, who had 1024 digs and graduated in 1996. Muszynski is also the first player in Texas-Pan American history to record 1000 kills and 1000 digs in her career.

Freshman libero Carol Marcengo (Curitiba, Brazil (SPEI HS) led Texas-Pan American with 39 digs. That's the second-best total in UTPA history in that category, six short of the single-match mark of 45 set by Nikol Gerlach in 1995. Freshman outside hitter Heather Bravo (Las Vegas, NV/Durango HS) added 20 kills and 17 digs, junior outside hitter Cathi Netemeyer (Los Fresnos, TX/Los Fresnos HS/Iowa) added 19 kills and hit .286, and freshman setter Jennifer Dameworth (El Paso, TX/Franklin HS) added 68 assists and 10 digs. Netemeyer was the only UTPA player who made the All-Tournament Team.

Jeannette Singleton led the Mountain Hawks with 18 kills while Katie Dukatz added 13. Jill Kober had 25 digs. The Lady Broncs out hit LU, .239-.184.

"Jaclyn came up big when we needed her, Cathi played well, Carol was like a Hoover in the back court, and we played with more confidence in the last game," said UTPA Head Coach Dave Thorn. "We passed well, and played real good defense. We're starting to come together, and learn from our mistakes. I'm really glad that we won. We put ourselves in a tough situation after we won the first two games, but we were able to get out of it. We need to learn that when we have a team down, 2-0, we need to put them away."

In Saturday's first match, the teams battled on nearly even terms through the first three games, with North Texas pulling out wins in the first two games and the Lady Broncs taking game three. UNT pulled away for the victory in the decisive fourth game.

"It was similar to yesterday's match," said UTPA Head Coach Dave Thorn. "We were with them right up until the end of the first and second games. We won the third game, and the fourth game was close most of the way, but they pulled away in the end."

Muszynski had 12 kills for UTPA, Netemeyer added nine, and Bravo and sophomore middle blocker Stephanie Redd (Seguin, TX/Seguin HS) added eight apiece. Brieanne Fowler led UNT with 14 kills, 11 digs and a .520 hitting percentage. Brittney Gregory had 17 kills and hit .308, while Jill Ruskowski had 15 kills and 11 digs. The Mean Green hit .253 to the Lady Broncs' .151.

Texas-Pan American improved to 1-2 with the split, while Lehigh fell to 0-3 and UNT improved to 2-0. The Lady Broncs will host Prairie View A&M Tuesday evening in their 2003 home opener.