SAN ANTONIO – The UTEP volleyball team had a minor hiccup, dropping the opening set in extra points before fighting back and defeating the UTSA Roadrunners in four sets, 3-1 (24-26, 25-15, 25-13, 25-11) Thursday evening in the Convocation Center. 
 

The Miners improve to 15-9 (9-4 Conference USA) while UTSA drops to 7-18 (2-11 C-USA).   

 
A pair of Miners hit double-digit kills, Sara Pustahija led the match with 14 kills while hitting .357 and Torrance Lovesee followed with 11. Ashlynn Barnes (21) and Hande Yetis (20) combined to put up 41 assists for the squad and Barnes had a team- and career-high 12 digs for her first double-double. Lovesee achieved a career-high of four service aces. Barnes had two successful dump attacks to record a personal best attack percentage of .667. 

  
UTEP's all-around performance held the statistical advantage in kills (57-29), blocks (11-3), hitting percentage (.321 - .042), and service aces (13-3).   
  
"We were able to lock in defensively, and block and serve and that's important this time of year," head coach Ben Wallis said. "We really started to block it better in the third and the fourth sets and just decided we were going to go play better volleyball. And the scores show we got better each set, which is good." 

  
SET ONE | UTEP kicked off the opening set with a 4-1 lead, but the Roadrunners battled it out, leveling the score seven times before the Miners jumped to a 19-14 lead. UTSA tied it up at 19 and continued to do so as set point approached. The Roadrunners drove a 3-0 run to win the set in extra points, 26-24. 

SET TWO | UTEP settled in with another 4-1 lead aided by three kills by Kaya Weaver. The Miners locked in a six-point lead prior to the media timeout, 15-9. UTEP entered the red zone off a kill by Vittoria Price to jump up 20-12. UTSA extinguished both timeouts just before UTEP busted out a 4-1 scoring run to even the match, 25-15.    

SET THREE | Ashlynn Barnes won the opening point with an ace, but UTSA turned around with an early 3-2 lead. UTEP produced an 8-1 run that consisted of five kills and two aces and the Roadrunners responded with a small spurt of their own right before the Miners served up four more aces taking an 11-point lead, 21-10. Two back-to-back errors from UTSA sent the Miners into set point and a solo block from Price put UTEP ahead in the match, 25-13. 

SET FOUR | UTEP rolled out a 10-1 lead in the fourth set. UTSA shrunk the deficit by five forcing UTEP to take a timeout, 12-7. After the break, the Miners continued to dominate at the net. UTSA's attempt to ice the Miners didn't work out as UTEP drew up a 9-1 run around the Roadrunners' timeout. Kills by Serena Patterson and Lovesee slammed the door on UTSA, taking the W at 25-11. 
   

Final Thoughts from Coach Wallis      

"I'm pretty excited for Ashlynn Barnes, she stepped in tonight in relief of Mattie Gantt and did really well. We've had good depth all year and that's really helped us continue to play well. She really served it tough and as a team we served it really tough after the first set. In the first set we were a little sketchy. We missed too many and missed kind of poorly and that led UTSA back in the set, even though we had 15 kills in the first set. But after that we just really pushed UTSA around from the service line and all six of our servers had at least one ace, which is cool. We passed it very well on long stretches. Alyssa Sianez and Hula Crisostomo did a good job of just staying tough and getting after it. We had a balanced attack and scored really well on the left, with Torrance Lovesee and Sara Pustahija getting kills from that standpoint. Moving forward into the conference tournament, we got one more really tough match at home against a good UAB team that's got 3-1000 kill kids. So, we got our hands full on Saturday for Senior Day, but we've got a job to do. We've got our eyes set towards finishing in third place and making sure that we're seeded well enough to get ourselves a chance to move up to this conference tournament and try to win it. And so the task at hand is to get by UAB and prepare ourselves for next week in Western Kentucky." 

 
UP NEXT         
Miners are back in action as they host UAB on Saturday (Nov. 12) at 11 a.m. MT in Memorial Gym for "Senior Day." 
   

 
For complete coverage of UTEP Women's Volleyball, be sure to follow the Miners on social media at @utepvb (Instagram) @UTEPVolleyball (Facebook) and @UTEPVB (Twitter) or visit the official home of UTEP Athletics at UTEPMiners.com.