RICHMOND, Ky. – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros volleyball team closed its weekend at the Geri Polvino Invitational with a 3-0 (25-14, 26-24, 25-14) sweep of the Akron Zips Saturday at the Olympic Sports Training Center.
Junior outside hitter
Nadine Zech paced UTRGV (3-5) with 10 kills, seven digs and two aces. Freshman outside hitter
Dimitra Nanou and senior right side
Valentina Sarti Cipriani both recorded eight kills, while Cipriani tabbed three blocks and Nanou added six digs and a career-high three aces. Junior setter
Isabella Costantini finished with 25 assists, six digs and three blocks. Junior libero
Celianiz Cabranes had a match-high 12 digs and one assist.
Maureen Mathews and
Delaney Gash had 11 and 10 kills, respectively, for Akron (5-4).
Martina Villani finished with 22 assists and eight digs, and
Vanessa Del Real tabbed 11 digs.
The first set started tight, then the Vaqueros forced a bevy of Akron errors to take control midway through. Zech was the go-to scorer, putting down five kills in the frame, but Costantini spread the ball around and got a lot of Vaqueros swinging early. UTRGV closed the set on a 10-1 run with a block and an ace in the mix to handily take the frame, 25-14. The Vaqueros held Akron to .026 hitting with 11 attack errors while hitting .310 themselves.
UTRGV started strong in the second set, taking an 8-5 lead following a kill from junior middle blocker and Harlingen High alum
Julianna Bryant. But the Zips evened things up and then the teams swapped scores in a tight frame. The Vaqueros used aces from Cabranes and Zech to open a 20-17 lead and force Akron to call a second timeout. The Zips responded to the break well, knotting the frame at 21-21. Akron took a brief lead at 23-22, but Nanou and Zech came through late with kills and aces and the Vaqueros took a 2-0 lead with a 26-24 set win.
Nanou put down the first two kills of the third set, then the Vaqueros tabbed back-to-back blocks to open up an early 6-2 lead. After the Zips evened things up at 6-6, Bryant and Costantini teamed up for the third block of the frame to spark a UTRGV run. The Vaqueros scored eight unanswered points and maintained momentum through a pair of Akron timeouts as Costantini distributed the ball well, getting all of her hitters involved. Nanou and Cabranes served late aces to get UTRGV to match point. The Zips fought off a few, but Zech slammed home a kill to secure the sweep with a 25-14 set win.
UTRGV forced the Zips to commit 27 attack errors and held them to .057 hitting for the match. The Vaqueros will close out the non-conference season at the Erie Insurance Invitational hosted by James Madison in Harrisonburg, Virginia Sept. 19-21.
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