MISSOULA, Mont. – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros volleyball team pushed the No. 5 Pitt Panthers, a team that reached the Final Four of the 2022 NCAA Tournament, in a 3-0 loss (25-19, 25-18, 25-16) Sunday to wrap up the Ellesyn Invitational at Dahlberg Arena.
UTRGV (1-2) junior setter
Luanna Emiliano dished out a match-high 24 assists and had four digs, three kills and one ace. Junior right side
Perris Key led the Vaqueros with eight kills and tallied two aces, three digs and one block. Junior libero
Kiaraliz Perez tallied a team-high seven digs and one ace.
Pitt (2-1) was led by
Torrey Stafford's 10 kills and
Rachel Jepsen's six blocks.
The Vaqueros stayed tight with the Panthers for the majority of the opening set, which saw six ties and three lead changes. They took advantage of some Pitt errors and saw good play early from Key, who served an ace to put UTRGV up 8-5, the largest lead for either team at that point. Perez got under a lot of well-hit balls and junior middle blocker
Margherita Giani applied pressure at the net.
Both teams showed off their heavy hitters, launching rockets at each other from the outside. Pitt went on a 6-0 run to claim its largest lead, up 17-12, until junior outside hitter
Ilana De Assis flipped the momentum with a kill. UTRGV went on a 3-0 run and trimmed the deficit to two, trailing 19-17, after a hard hit from freshman outside hitter
Nadine Zech (six kills, one block) and a dump kill from Emiliano.
Pitt's big block went to work late in the frame and despite a kill from Key fighting off one set point, the Panthers took the set 25-19.
The Vaqueros started slow in the second set and Pitt took advantage, quickly claiming control and going up 7-2. The Panthers block continued to execute and pushed their lead to 16-9 midway through the set. UTRGV played scrappy defense and competed hard despite the deficit, particularly seeing Giani and Key putting balls away. But Pitt's size and power on the attack kept the Vaqueros out of system and forced some errors as the Panthers took the set 25-18 to go up 2-0.
UTRGV had a slow start again to open the third, but the Vaqueros regrouped and came back strong. They went on a 5-0 to tie the match at 10-10, aided by strong play from Key, Giani and Zech. Emiliano added a kill to knot the frame again, then an error from Pitt gave the Vaqueros their first lead at 12-11 and forced a Pitt timeout.
The Vaqueros and Panthers swapped points to a 15-15 tie, one of six in the frame that also had two lead changes, but Pitt shored things up and used its massive block to challenge UTRGV's hitters, leading to a string of attack errors and a 7-0 run. After a kill from Assis, Pitt claimed the final three points to secure the 3-0 match victory.
UTRGV was held to a .120 hitting percentage while Pitt hit .359 and out-blocked the undersized Vaqueros 10-3.
The Vaqueros will be back in action Sept. 1-2 at the Molly Howard Gerwig Memorial Tournament in Houston.
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