EL PASO – The UTEP volleyball team closed out the night with a straight set victory over the MTSU Blue Raiders, 3-0 (25-23, 25-26, 25-22) in Memorial Gym Friday evening.  

 
The Miners improve to 8-4 in conference play (14-11 overall) while Middle Tennessee drops to 4-7 (15-10 overall).   

Vittoria Price led the team with eight kills while hitting .700. Hande Yetis (17) and Mattie Gantt (12) combined to put up 29 assists for the team and Hula Crisostomo tallied seven digs. 

UTEP's all-around performance held the statistical advantage in kills (41-30), blocks (8-4), hitting percentage (.329 - .169), and service aces (9-3).     

"We rose to the occasion against a team that was very chippy," head coach Ben Wallis said. "And they (MTSU) like to talk a little mess and like to stare you down a little bit and we saw it on film, and it bothered us a little bit. But I'm glad to see the competitive nature of my team come back out. We had a reason to play, and that reason was to continue to give ourselves an opportunity to be seeded where we want to be seeded to win this conference." 

SET ONE | The Miners jumped to a 4-1 lead to kick-off the opening set. UTEP drove a 9-1 scoring run to pull ahead, 15-7. The Blue Raiders closed the deficit 23-19 before UTEP took its first timeout. After the break, MTSU came within one point but a kill by Patterson sealed the set win, 25-23.

SET TWO | UTEP gained the early lead in the second set despite MTSU winning the first point to open it up. After seven tied scores UTEP blasted home two big scoring runs to stretch the lead. The Miners first forced two MSTU timeouts within their 6-1 run. The Miners allowed one point to the Blue Raiders before driving a 6-0 run that consisted of three consecutive service aces from Mattie Gantt to extend the lead 19-9. As UTEP entered the red zone, a late 4-1 run from MTSU came up short as two back-to-back kills from the Miners secured the second set win, 25-16. 

SET THREE | MTSU picked up a strong lead in the third, 7-1. The Miners slowly inched their way to close the deficit and tied it at 14 even. The Blue Raiders continued to hold the Miners back, but UTEP kept the pressure on leveling the set at 17, 18, and 19. UTEP snatched the lead off an ace by Hula Crisostomo and a kill by Vittoria Price forcing MSTU to side bar. Both teams put up two points before UTEP took a timeout and after the break kills by Darley and Price completed the sweep, 25-22. 

Final Thoughts from Coach Wallis       
"I think us, Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee are the three top serving teams in the conference. And they showed it, and we showed it. I mean, they go back and hit some bullets. And so, I was concerned all week about us not having Sarah in there, who's a primary passer for us, but what I know about Serena Patterson is, she's a first team all-conference kid for a reason - she earned it. And so, putting her back on the left, being able to stabilize it passing it without one of our normal primary passers, she's just a warrior and I really appreciate her. She dug it hard. She served it tough. She came up with some special blocks there. Our middles were really good. We worked hard at finding that gap this week, knowing that their middles wanted to stay neutral and give us one on none potentially. So really good job by our setters executing it, really good job by our two middles. I'm proud of Pepa (Alyssa Sianez) and I'm proud of Hula (Crisostomo) for getting back there in a two-person serve-receive and just going and dealing with that team serving bullets on their own. Adri Rhoda (MTSU) is one of the best servers in the conference. I looked at Hula at one point in the third set and I asked, 'do you want three-person here?' And she said, 'No, coach, we got it'. And they went to two-person against one of the best servers in our conference and we got a kill and won the game. So just a really good group win there and I'm proud of our competitive chippy-ness to be able to beat a really good offensive team." 

UP NEXT          
The Miners will head to San Antonio, Texas to take on UTSA on Thursday (Nov. 10) and turn back around to host UAB on Saturday (Nov. 12) 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.