University of Tennessee Athletics
University of Tennessee
1-0
Delaware State
0-1
UT Wins Volleyball Opener, 3-0
August 28, 2015 | Volleyball
TOWSON, Md. -- The Tennessee Volunteers opened the volleyball season with a 3-0 (25-12, 25-14, 25-10) victory over Delaware State on Friday to begin the Towson Invitational at SECU Arena.
"I'm very happy with the energy and focus of the team in the first match of the year," Tennessee head coach Rob Patrick said. "We were able to play a lot of our team because they deserved to be on the court due to the work they put in the summer and preseason."
Freshman Erica Treiber led the way in her collegiate debut, collecting nine kills while hitting .500. Junior Kanisha Jimenez added eight kills and six digs.
Senior Lexi Dempsey led the Vols with 24 assists to go along with eight digs. Junior Bridgette Villano had team-leading nine digs.
The Vols return to the court to face host Towson at 7 p.m.
Treiber paced Tennessee early, collecting five kills and an ace in her first set in the orange and white.
The Vols took a 3-2 lead on a Delaware State service error and never trailed from there. They won five of the next six points, going ahead 8-3 on a kill by Treiber on an assist by Dempsey. Tennessee continued to pull away and closed out the set 25-12 when Kelsey Bawcombe served up an ace.
Delaware State kept pace early in the second set when Jasmine Jackson recorded a kill to close the score to 10-7, but the Vols won six of the next seven points to take a 16-8 lead on back-to-back kills by Bawcombe and Jimenez.
Bawcombe hit a pair of aces in a three-point span in the third set, leading Tennessee with three aces. The team had six in the match.
Thirteen players took the court for the Vols, and nine of them recorded at least one kill. The team hit .365 for the match, including .545 in the final set.
"One of our main focuses is to play more efficiently," Patrick said. "In attacking, our hitters did a fantastic job of being consistent in their swings.
"I thought setters Lexi and Courtney (Mueller) did a great job distributing the ball The five hitting positions averaged 15 attacks."
Delaware State hit -.023 with 22 attack errors.
