Temple Volleyball Dominates Day Two of Cherry and White Challenge

After a hard loss on Friday, Temple Volleyball was able to bounce back and overcome University of New Hampshire and Rutgers on Saturday.

In the first match against UNH, both teams came out fighting and lead changes were more than frequent. Temple prevailed in the close game winning 26-24. With a back and forth second set, Temple was able to win with a score of 25-21. An early UNH lead in the third set, led to a Temple loss with a score of 18-25. Temple came out dominating the fourth set with great defense. The Owls came out on top with a 25-12 win in the fourth set and an overall match win against the Wildcats.

Leading the way for the Owls was Jr. Irem Asci and Jr. Izzy Rapacz. Both girls performed outstandingly and both had double double games. Asci racked up 16 kills and 20 digs, and Rapacz also had 16 kills and 19 digs. Sr. Kirsten Overton was also a huge asset in the match with 12 kills and 9 blocks.

Temple went up with an early lead against Rutgers in the first set. Temple was able to dominate and defeat Rutgers in the first set 25-13. With a mixture of scrappy defense and a commanding offense, the Owls were able to top Rutgers in the second set with a score of 25-14. Going in to the third set, the Owls could not be stopped. The Owls won the third set with a score of 25-18 and had a clean sweep over Rutgers.

Individually, Jr. Irem Asci led the way with 10 kills and So. Iva Deak added on 8 kills as well. Sr. Kirsten Overton had a great game with 6 blocks, and Jr. Kyra Coundourides had 29 assists and 13 digs. Irem Asci and Kirsten Overton also made the All -Tournament Team.

After coming of a hard loss against Cleveland State, the Owls bounced back quickly, and are looking forward to the Big 5 Tournament next weekend.

“Change what we didn’t do was the motto going into today’s games” said Senior Kirsten Overton. “We just kept telling ourselves that it was a new game and a new day.”

“Our none conference schedule this year is really, really competitive” said Head Coach Bakeer Ganeharatnam. “We have another really big weekend coming up with Villanova, so we are going to spend some time in practice this week, but the good thing is we were home this weekend, and we are home next weekend. We are going to make sure we prepare for Villanova on Friday.”

The Owls record improves to 4-3. The Temple Owls will play against Villanova University on Friday September 16^th at 4:30 P.M at Penn in the Big 5 Tournament.