TUCSON – The UTEP volleyball team (5-7) closed out the Wildcat Classic with a win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (0-14), 3-1 (13-25, 25-19, 25-17, 25-14) Saturday.
Sara Pustahija led the squad with 12 kills and a career-high hitting percentage of .400. Hande Yetis (21) and Mattie Gannt (12) combined to put up 33 assists for the Miners and Hula Crisostomo had a team-high 17 digs.
UTEP held the statistical advantage in kills (40-29), blocks (13-4), and hitting percentage (.184 - .008) but came up short in aces (7-10).
"To win at a high level we're going to have to iron out a lot of little details that are happening, but I'm glad to get out of here with a win over Corpus Christi," head coach Ben Wallis said. "They're really tough to deal with and when you look at their record, that doesn't even come close to understanding how difficult they are to deal with because they do everything so fast, and they put pressure on you, and they serve it gross. So, it's a good win to get a third win over Corpus Christi in as many years because they're going to go and give themselves an opportunity to win their conference."
SET ONE | UTEP posted two aces in the beginning sequence of the match and a pair of kills for a 7-4 lead. The Islanders broke the 9-9 tie that snowballed into a 4-0 scoring run before UTEP took a timeout. As the Miners were down by two points, 13-15, the Islanders stopped produced a 10-0 run to win the set, 25-13.
SET TWO | Five errors from A&M-Corpus Christi aided the Miners in their 7-5 lead. UTEP handed in a 4-0 run before the Islanders responded with a 5-1 run of their own to close in on the Miners 17-16. UTEP put up three kills and three blocks to stretch the lead making way for Torrance Lovesee to put down a kill for the set win, 25-19.
SET THREE | The Islanders broke their own 4-3 lead with an attack error and UTEP did not hesitate to drive up a large scoring run to for a 17-7 advantage. The Miners called for a sidebar after the Islanders shrunk the deficit by six, 18-12. Pustahija and Lovesee found ways to slam kills over the Islanders, but a pair of errors from A&M-Corpus Christi sealed the set for UTEP, 25-17, and a 2-1 advantage in the match.
SET FOUR | UTEP had full control of the final set and never gave an opportunity for the Islanders to tie up the score. Pustahija's triple-kill and ace sequence moved the finish line closer for the Miners, 9-4. With multiple 3-0 scoring runs for UTEP, Mattie Gantt put up back-to-back aces and Marian Ovalle shredded back-to-back kills for a six-point lead, 18-12. Lovesee sprinkled a couple kills in between a few errors from the Islanders and Pustahija posted back-to-back kills for the match win, 25-14.
Final Thoughts from Coach Wallis
"We had some pretty good plays from young people all throughout the weekend. Especially Kaya (Weaver) having to go in and be thrusted into the starting lineup and she looked like she was ready, willing, and able to be a real big scorer for us, which was exciting. At times Torrance (Lovesee) was the Hulk and was able to carry us today against Corpus Christi. Ali (Darley) was really good at blocking it. We're going to iron out some of the offensive stuff with her, but, man, she's doing a good job blocking it and we just got to find a way to build some confidence with her as a scorer right now. Hula (Crisostomo) was just playing really, really well and I'm really proud of her. She's been here for almost three years now and she's finally settled in and confident in what she's doing. She's leading by example and she's leading vocally. She's playing very consistently and I'm proud of what she's putting out there. And then Sarah had a really good day today. She was looking like a scorer on the left and she served it well and blocked it and dug it pretty well at times which gave us opportunities to set her on the left a lot to score at a pretty high level. Now, we're going to get tomorrow off to rest and then on Monday, we got a good UTRGV team coming in that has a chance to win the WAC and it'll be a good test for us before our conference play starts next weekend."
UP NEXT
The Miners return to action as they host UTRGV on Monday Sep. 19 at 7 p.m. MT at Memorial Gym.
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.
