The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Baylor
No. 8 Volleyball wins 11th straight in four-set victory against Baylor
10.24.2012 | Volleyball
Oct. 24, 2012
AUSTIN, Texas -- The No. 8 Texas Volleyball team won its 11th straight match Wednesday with a four-set win over the Baylor Bears (25-18, 20-25, 25-9, 25-22) in a Big 12 match in Gregory Gym. With tonight's win by Iowa State over Kansas, UT remains in first place in the Big 12 with a perfect 9-0 conference mark and two matches ahead of the Jayhawks in the standings.
Texas has now won 37 consecutive Big 12 matches in Gregory Gym, dating back to the 2008 season.
Sophomore All-America outside hitter Haley Eckerman had her fifth-straight double-double with 18 kills and 12 digs while hitting .400 (18-2-40) for the match. Bailey Webster added 13 kills and four blocks while Hannah Allison tied her career high with five kills while using 43 assists and a season-high four blocks to aid the Longhorns' cause. Khat Bell barely missed her own double-double with nine kills and nine blocks for Texas (17-3).
Zoe Adom led Baylor (16-8, 3-6) with 13 kills while hitting .545 (13-1-22) with Adrien Richburg adding seven kills and two blocks.
A 6-1 run in the middle of the first set helped the Longhorns pull away to take the first set. Baylor would surprise the Longhorns in the second set after trailing 11-8 with a 7-1 run to take the lead. Molly McCage got Texas within one at 17-16, but Tori Cox started a streak of four straight points as the Bears would tie the match.
The Longhorns came out of the intermission on fire with nine straight points, capped with a block by Bell and Allison. Texas finished the set the same way it started the set with nine straight points as the Longhorns hit .417 in the set while forcing Baylor to hit negative .226 with four kills and 11 hitting errors.
Down 21-18 in the fourth, Texas averted a fifth set with six straight points to finish off the victory. Madelyn Hutson, who combined with Bell on a block to give match point for the Longhorns, knocked down the match-ending kill on the right side off the block.
Texas will begin a stretch of three matches in six days, beginning on Sunday (Oct. 28) at Oklahoma with a 2 p.m. start on ESPNU. Gametracker live stats will be available on TexasSports.com with live Twitter updates @TexasVolleyball.
Notes: The nine points allowed by Texas in the third set were the fewest allowed since last November when Texas held Missouri to nine points in the third set in Columbia...the Longhorns' streak of nine wins to open Big 12 play is the second-longest in head coach Jerritt Elliott's tenure...the 2009 Longhorns went 12-0 before their first loss...Baylor won their first set in Gregory Gym since the 2006 season...Texas is 71-2 all-time in women's volleyball against Baylor and a perfect 37-0 at home...Khat Bell was two kills away from her season high of 11 (set twice this season) and one block away from her season high of 10, set on Oct. 12 against Kansas...Haley Eckerman now leads the team with five double-doubles this season.
BU 18-25- 9-22 TEXAS 25-20-25-25Records: Texas (17-3, 9-0), Baylor (16-8, 3-6) Kills: Haley Eckerman 18 (Texas), Zoe Adom 13 (Baylor)
Team: BU TEXAS 1 .176 .367 2 .303 .258 3 -.226 .417 4 .389 .389 Match .172 .355
Post-Match Quotes
Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott
On tonight's match: It was a battle. Give Baylor a lot of credit for the way that they played. When you look at the stat sheet it looks like we dominated the match, but it was a lot closer than those numbers. We made some big plays when it counted, so I'm very pleased about that. This conference is tough and you're going to have some matches where it's tight.
On what you said to the team between sets two and three: We have to be more consistent and can't be erratic. We can't get nerve-racked. We needed to come back and play focused and we did that
On what the team has been working on in their week off since Iowa State: We've been focusing a lot on our first-ball kill and trying to set at a higher kill percentage. We've been at about .330 kill percentage and tonight we were close to .500, so those things are starting to show me we are good. We've been trying to minimize our errors. We had good rhythm going into set one and played well.
Sophomore outside hitter Haley Eckerman
On being 9-0 in conference play for the first time since 2009: It's good. It helps us to see what we've done, but also what we can still do. We know we have to take it one game at a time and just keep battling for that Big 12 [championship].
On ending the match on a 6-0 run: We kept telling ourselves just one point at a time and to stay calm. It's something we've been working on in practice. We just have to do what we do and play Texas volleyball.
Junior libero Sarah Palmer
We're doing a good job of staying on top of teams early and try to keep that momentum going. Obviously, we're up and down during the set, which is something we are working on step by step in every practice. We're working on competing at a higher level every day and doing whatever it takes to get that point.
