EL PASO – UTEP volleyball (13-9, 7-2 Conference USA) will travel across the state for a pair of road matches this weekend. The Miners will take on North Texas on Friday at 5 p.m. MT and nationally ranked Rice on Sunday at 12 p.m. MT.  

Friday, Oct. 28    

5 p.m. at North Texas| Denton, Texas | North Texas Volleyball Center | ESPN+ | Live Stats 

Sunday, Oct. 30    

12 p.m. at No. 21 Rice| Houston, Texas | Tudor Fieldhouse | CUSA.tv | Live Stats     


Hitting with Consistency          
Three Miners are swinging better than .300 after 22 matches. Vittoria Price (.354) and Kaya Weaver (.306) lead the team among players with at least 70 kills. 

Block Party          
The Miners registered a season-high 17 blocks against North Texas on Oct. 2. UTEP posted at least 10 blocks in 11 matches this season. Alianza Darley (108) and Kaya Weaver (65) each tallied at least 60 blocks to lead the charge.       

Balanced Attack          
Over 22 matches, three Miners are blasting home at least 2.0 kills pet set. Torrance Lovesee (217, 2.65/set) leads the way with Serena Patterson (221, 2.43/set) and Sara Pustahija (211, 2.37/set) getting after it as well.  

Miner Rankings      
In Conference USA, UTEP is ranked in the top three in eight different categories:         
       

1. Team Service Aces (178, 3rd NCAA) 

1. Team Total Blocks (225.5, 8th NCAA) 

1. Team Assists (1,054, 36th NCAA) 

1. Team Kills (1,119, 47th NCAA) 

2. Opp Hitting Percentage (0.170, 31st NCAA) 

2. Blocks per Set (2.48, 41st NCAA) 

3. Aces per Set (1.96, 10th NCAA) 

3. Team Total Attacks (2,902, 117th NCAA) 

       
UTEP has four players ranked in the top ten in five different categories in the conference:        

        
      
    
Scouting North Texas (10-13, 4-4 C-USA)  
The Mean Green are hitting .208 as a team. Treyaunna Rush leads the way with 315 kills (3.62 kills/set). Ceci Harness directs the offense with 601 assists (6.91 assists/set). Aleeyah Galdeira sets the tone defensively with 397 digs (4.56 digs/set).         

The Series vs. North Texas 
The programs break even in the all-time series sitting at 11 wins each. Recently, UTEP defeated the Mean Green in five sets in Memorial Gym. 

Scouting No. 21 Rice (18-2, 8-0 C-USA) 

Rice junior libero Nia McCardell currently leads Conference USA in digs per set, averaging 5.03, which is 21st in the country. Fifth-year middle blocker Anota Adekunle leads C-USA with a 41.3% hitting percentage, good for 10th in the nation. As a team the Owls currently rank 10th in the NCAA in digs per set (17.05) and are 23rd in opponents hitting percentage (.166). The Owls have held 16 of 20 opponents below a hitting percentage of .200 or worse this season. Dating back to 2014 the Owls are 100-20 (.833) in Conference USA play, which includes a 55-3 (.948) record the last three seasons. Rice has won 34 consecutive C-USA regular season contests dating back to the 2019 season. 

The Series vs. No. 21 Rice 
Rice is 45-10 against UTEP. Rice has won the last 11 meetings, and the last time UTEP defeated the Owls was in 2017 in five-sets at home.   

    
Coach Wallis on the Competition   

"It's going to be tough. Anytime you go to Denton to play, it's hard. Their gym is one of the toughest places to play in all of America because of how small it is, but also because the ceiling's really low and it's an easy thing to make excuses for not playing well if you're not tough of mind. It makes it harder when you're playing against a team like North Texas who's extremely athletic, very dangerous, and very competitive. They got salty, competitive players all through their roster and we beat them here at home in five. So, they're going to be ready to play. They're actually, in a lot of ways, a very dangerous team because they're 4-4 in conference and they're trying to find a way to get back up into a quality place in terms of seeding for the conference tournament. Playing them in Denton is always a task and always a chore, and so getting on the road and playing them. They're going to be tough. And then we have to turn around, depending upon whether we win or lose there, we've got to move on fast to get to Houston and worry more about the 21st ranked team in the country, which is still on our minds. We still think a lot about losing against them in our own gym by two points, 16-14. It's kind of been burned in our players memories and for the right reasons. They're going to cause different issues. They have different complex problems that they that they present to us. And so really, we haven't really stopped talking much about UNT this week because we're focused on them first. If we want to be a conference champion in Conference USA this year, we've got to beat Rice and we got to beat Rice on their home floor or we got to beat Western Kentucky on their home floor. And one of those two things has to happen in order for us to be able to do this and win this conference championship. So, we're looking forward to it. It's going to be tough. It's going to be a really challenging week for us. We're playing pretty well offensively, but at the end of the day, if you want to be good, you've got to go through greatness to be able to get to greatness. And so that's what stands in front of us this week." 

   
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