EDINBURG – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) volleyball team swept Texas Southern 3-0 (25-17, 25-17, 25-16) during the UTRGV Tournament on Friday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.
 
UTRGV continues the tournament at 7 p.m. against Texas Tech while Texas Southern faces Houston Baptist at 4:30.
 
Junior Barbara Silva led UTRGV (8-4) with 14 kills on .321 hitting, eight digs and two blocks. Senior Ragni Steen Knudsen recorded seven kills with nine digs. Senior Alexandra Ecker finished with six kills on .429 hitting with four digs and one block. Senior Barbara Thais Krug recorded a season-high five kills on .278 hitting with a season-high 11 digs.
 
Jada Hall led Texas Southern (1-9) with five kills.
 
Texas Southern led early in the first set going up 9-6. Silva responded with three kills to power a 9-3 run to put UTRGV up 15-12. UTRGV's lead was cut to two at 19-17, but UTRGV won the final six serves, including two Knudsen kills and two by junior Talita Oliveira.
 
UTRGV led wire-to-wire in the second set and pulled away early, as with the score 7-5, UTRGV went on a 10-4 run on the strength of three more Silva kills to go up 17-9. Silva also had the set winning kill.
 
Texas Southern led 4-2 early in the third set. UTRGV answered by scoring the next five points, capped by an Ecker kill, as part of a 14-1 run to make the score 16-5. Ecker had two kills during the run while Krug had three.

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