10/23/03

Volleyball Preview: Texas A&M

Complete Preview

Match 20: Texas (10-9, 5-5) at No. 21 Texas A&M (13-7, 5-4)
When: Friday, Oct. 24 (6 p.m.)  
Where: G. Rollie White Coliseum (7,800) - College Station, Texas
Series vs. Texas A&M: Texas leads the all-time series 55-20, including a 19-8 mark on the road
Last meeting:  Texas defeated A&M, 3-2, in Gregory Gym on Oct. 1, 2003
Streak: Texas has won one meeting
Live Stats: Live stats will be available at www.AggieAthletics.com
Audio broadcast: A live Internet broadcast will be available at www.AggieAthletics.com

SECOND TIME AROUND
Friday's (Oct. 24) match marks the official start to the second half of the Big 12 season.  Each conference team plays the other 10 volleyball-playing members twice a season, which includes one match at home and one match on the road.  Texas went 5-5 in the first half of the conference slate.

THE LONGHORNS IN BRIEF
Texas enters Friday's (Oct. 24) match with a 10-9 record overall and a 5-5 mark in Big 12 play.  The team is in a sixth-place tie in the Big 12 standings with Colorado.  Wednesday (Oct. 22), the Longhorns fell, 3-2, at Kansas despite rallying from an 0-2 deficit. Five of Texas' nine losses have come at the hands of ranked teams.  Junior All-American Mira Topic (Kastela Kambelovac, Croatia/Vladimir Nazor) and junior Bethany Howden (Austin, Texas/Westlake) each have 300 kills (4.41/game) to lead the Longhorns.  Topic has also added 32 service aces.  Freshman middle blocker Brandy Magee (Mission Viejo, Calif./Capistrano Valley) tops the team in hitting percentage (.359) and blocks (70).  She has also added 160 kills.  Freshman setter Jenny Andrew (Houston, Texas/Kingwood) is the team's only setter and has 806 assists and is second on the team in blocks with 51, while sophomore defensive specialist Erin Larson (San Antonio, Texas/Ronald Reagan) has 234 digs to lead the team.  Overall, the team is out-hitting opponents, .254 to .213, and out-blocking its opponents, 178.0 to 113.5.

TEXAS A&M IN BRIEF
Texas A&M enters Friday's match with a 15-5 overall record and a 7-3 record in conference play.  The Aggies are currently ranked 21st in the latest USA Today/AVCA Poll, and are in fourth place in the Big 12 standings.  A&M has won its last five matches and its last losses were back-to-back losses at Texas (3-2 on Oct. 1) and No. 12 Kansas State (3-1 on Oct. 4).  Head coach Laurie Corbelli's squad is led by sophomore outside hitter Laura Jones, who has 298 kills (3.87/game), and junior outside hitter Melissa Munsch, who has 272 (3.73/game).  Munsch has also added 25 aces, while senior outside hitter Beth Skypala leads the team with 246 digs.  Junior middle blocker Kendra Felder has 85 blocks to pace the Aggies.      
         
AGAINST THE AGGIES
Texas has an all-time record of 55-20 against Texas A&M, including a 19-8 record on the road. A&M has won seven of the last nine meetings between the two schools.  Texas won the last meeting - on Oct. 1 in Gregory Gym - 3-2 after rallying from a 2-0 deficit.  A&M has won the last five meetings in College Station, dating back to 1999. Until their victory at home last Oct. 9, 2002, the Longhorns had lost the previous six overall meetings, as well, dating back to 1999.

LAST MEETING WITH A&M
Texas rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat No. 22 Texas A&M on Wednesday, Oct. 1 in UT's Gregory Gym.  After the Aggies captured the first two games, 31-29 and 30-24, the Longhorns took the third and fourth games, 30-21 and 31-29.  In the fifth and decisive game, UT faced match point twice, but both times battled back to tie the score.  Kathy Hahn (Leander, Texas/Leander) rescued the team first to bring the score to 14-14, then Mira Topic responded with a kill to tie it at 15-15.  After another Topic kill that gave the Longhorns a 17-16 lead, UT won the fifth game and the match on an A&M error.  Topic finished the match with 22 kills and 11 digs for her fourth double-double of the year, and Bethany Howden added 20 kills and Hahn had 13.  Erin Larson had a career-high 24 digs, while setter Jenny Andrew had a career-high nine blocks (two solo, seven assisted) and Brandy Magee added eight (all assisted).

SISTER-SISTER
Kathy Hahn could possibly look across the net and see a familiar face on Friday when Texas A&M takes the court.  Her younger sister Christi is a freshman middle blocker on the Aggies' squad.  Should Christi check into the game, it would mark the first time Kathy would play against her sister.  Christi did not see any action in the team's first meeting of the season on Oct. 1.

TAKING OUT HER AGGIE-RESSION
Kathy Hahn has played exceptionally well against Texas A&M in her career, posting some of her best performances against the Aggies.  In her freshman year, she recorded a 16-kill, five-block game, before following that up with a 19-kill, seven-block performance in the teams' first meeting last season.  In the second meeting of 2002, Hahn set her career high in kills with 27, while also adding two digs and two blocks. In the last match, she added 13 kills on 25 attacks for a .400 hitting percentage.

AND ANOTHER ONE IN THE WINGS
Freshman setter Jenny Andrew might be in the wings to take Kathy Hahn's place as the resident "Aggie killer" when Hahn graduates next year.  In her first career match against A&M, Andrew played a spectacular overall game, matching a then-career high of nine kills, adding 52 assists and pulling out eight digs.  More impressive, however, was her nine blocks (two solo and seven assisted), which still stands as the team's highest individual total in a match this season.

SUPERIOR IN THE STATE
Texas is 7-0 against in-state rivals and will put that record to test on Friday against the Aggies.  The Longhorns have wins over Texas State (3-1), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (3-0), UT-Arlington (3-1), Houston (3-0), No. 22 Texas A&M (3-2), Baylor (3-1) and Texas Tech (3-0).  In 2002, UT went 10-1 against in-state opponents, with the only loss coming to A&M to close the regular season.  Under head coach Jerritt Elliott, the Longhorns are 22-5 against other Texas-based schools.

TOPIC HONORED BY BIG 12
Junior outside hitter Mira Topic was selected as the Big 12 Conference Volleyball Player of the Week for her outstanding performance during the week ending Oct. 19. Against KSU in a tight 3-2 loss, Topic posted her seventh double-double of the season tallying 20 kills and a season high of 18 digs.  Topic added four aces and four blocks in the match.  Against Texas Tech last Saturday, she accumulated 14 kills and nine digs in the Longhorns' 3-0 win. She also recorded a career-high four solo blocks.

TRIPLE THREAT
Freshman setter Jenny Andrew recorded the team's first triple-double of the 2003 season on Oct. 15 when she collected 10 kills, 11 digs and 51 assists in Texas' 3-2 loss at No. 8 Kansas State.  She is the first Longhorn to record a triple-double since Jill Gremmel executed the feat as a junior in 1999.  On Nov. 20, 1999 Gremmel had 13 kills, 10 digs and 69 assists at Colorado.  Like Andrew, Gremmel was also the team's setter.

ALL-AROUND ANDREW
As her recent triple-double attests, Jenny Andrew - the team's freshman setter - has become an all-around player for the Longhorns, getting involved in the match far beyond just setting the offense.  At 6-2, Andrew is also a force at the net, accumulating 51 blocks (0.75/game) and 94 kills (1.38/game).  Before her career performance against the KSU Wildcats on Oct. 15, Andrew proved to be the "Aggie-killer" in the team's upset of its traditional rival No. 22 Texas A&M (Oct. 1).  That night, Andrew tied her then-career high of nine kills and set the team's top mark in blocks for the season with nine (two solo and seven assisted). Andrew has also added 100 digs on the season.  She has played every point this season and is the team's captain on the court during the match.

HOWDEN COMING ON STRONG
Bethany Howden has come on strong of late and has been Texas' offensive force since moving to the outside because of the season-ending injury to Dariam Acevedo.  In nine matches since her positional move, Howden has racked up 158 kills in 34 games (4.65/game).  She is now tied for the team lead with Mira Topic in kills with 300. With Acevedo's injury affecting the Longhorns' lineup, Howden was moved to outside hitter from her natural middle blocker position.

NEED LUCK AGAINST RANKED TEAMS
In six matches against ranked teams in 2003, Texas has compiled a 1-5 record.  The team's lone win came most recently, on Oct. 1 at home against No. 22 Texas A&M (3-2).  UT's losses have come to No. 16 Long Beach State (3-1, Aug. 30), No. 21 Notre Dame (3-0, Sept. 6), No. 9 UCLA (3-0, Sept. 12), No. 8 Nebraska (3-0, Sept. 20) and No. 8 Kansas State (3-2, Oct. 15).

BLOCK PARTY
Texas has had impressive defensive displays at the net recently since facing Oklahoma (Sept. 24).  During the recent stretch, the Longhorns have out-blocked their opponents, 94.0 to 48.0.  Against Houston, Texas out-blocked the Cougars, 11.0 to 2.0.  The team dominated Texas A&M, 15.0 to 4.0, marking the highest total for an A&M opponent in more than two seasons.  In that match, two freshmen - setter Jenny Andrew and middle blocker Brandy Magee - combined for two solo blocks and 15 assisted blocks.  Andrew had nine blocks individually (two solo and seven assisted), and Magee added eight blocks (all assisted).  Both totals marked career highs for the players.  The team's match at No. 8 Kansas State was the first time since the Oklahoma match that the team had been out-blocked (11.0 to 9.0).

TOPIC TAKES AIM AT THIRD
Mira Topic has moved quickly up Texas' career kills list since entering it in 10th place on Sept. 5. Topic currently sits in fourth place with 1,357 career kills and is now 41 kills away from third-place Diane Watson (1983-86) who had 1,408.  Against No. 8 Kansas State, Topic recorded 20 kills and moved past both Janine Gremmel (1988-91) in sixth place and Dawn Davenport (1985-88), the 1988 NCAA Player of the Year, who was in fifth.

HOWDEN JOINS TOP CLUB, TOO
Bethany Howden, like Mira Topic did earlier this season, has also moved into the Texas career kills list.  She currently has 1,182 career kills, moving past Katie Austin (1995-98) in ninth and Nikki Busch (1988-91), who was in eighth with 1,174, in the team's last match at Kansas (Oct. 22).  She passed 10th-place Sharon Neugebauer (1981-84), who had 1,151, against Texas Tech on Oct. 18.  Howden is now 55 kills shy of Laura Neugebauer (1982-85), who is in seventh with 1,237 kills.

UP NEXT
Texas returns home to Gregory Gym to face No. 24 Missouri, on Wednesday, Oct. 29 in a 7 p.m. match.