Orlando, FL. – The Temple Owls continued their Florida trip by heading up from the University of Southern Florida to the University of Central Florida. These two games kicked off conference play for the Owls, who had just recently come off of a successful showing at the Big Five Tournament, where they placed second.
Historically, the Owls have had trouble with these teams, going 2-10 against USF and 3-4 against UCF. Friday night the Owls were able to improve their record against UCF to 3-10, making it three straight wins against the Bulls.
On Sunday afternoon the Owls played the UCF Knights, who was also 1-0 in conference play before the game took place, and 7-6 on the season.
Temple started off the first set strong, taking a 16-12 lead, but UCF came back and kept the Owls scoreless for multiple serves, taking the lead 17-16 and forcing Temple to take a timeout to regroup. Regroup they would, as they came back after the timeout immediately to tie it back up at 17 and then take the lead 18-17.
The rest of the first set was neck-and-neck and evenly matched for both teams.
Irem Asci and Izzy Rapacz led the Owls early on with kills, and led Temple to a one set lead in the match, winning 25-22.
In the second set, Temple jumped out to a seven point lead and put themselves within three points of winning their second straight set. They didn’t look back, and ended up taking the set 25-14.
The third set was not much different, and the Owls won that 25-12, winning the match with a sweep, just as they did earlier in the weekend against USF.
Sandra Sydlik had 36 assissts. Asci finished with 12 kills, and Rapacz had 11.
Temple improved to 11-3 and is 2-0 in conference play thus far.
Temple plays Memphis next at home on Friday.
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