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Oct. 1, 2008

Box Score

NORMAN, Okla. -- The third-ranked Texas Volleyball team received a 19 kill-effort from junior All-America outside hitter Destinee Hooker and a pair of 14-kill performances by All-Americans Lauren Paolini and Juliann Faucette as it downed Oklahoma, 3-1, Wednesday night at McCasland Fieldhouse. The 21-25, 25-14, 25-20, 25-19 victory moved the Longhorns to 9-2 on the season and 3-1 in Big 12 play, while the Sooners fell to 7-7 overall and 3-3 in league action. 

In a set marred by errors, Texas led early, but seven service errors allowed Oklahoma to rally and claim the opening frame. Oklahoma took advantage of a pair of UT service errors to claim a 7-6 lead and added a 4-1 run to push its lead to 11-7. Texas narrowed the lead to two (17-19) on two kills by junior All-America opposite hitter Ashley Engle, but Oklahoma was too strong down the stretch, earning a 25-21 victory.

After falling behind to start the second set, Texas used a 10-2 run paced by a kill and an ace from Faucette to take a 13-6 lead. The Longhorns widened the margin to nine (20-11) on a Faucette kill before three kills by Hooker, closed out the frame, 25-14. Faucette and Hooker each tallied five kills in the set, while the Horns hit at blistering .696 clip and committed just one attack error.

Texas trailed again to start the third stanza until a 9-2 run headlined by three kills from Paolini put the Longhorns ahead, 16-11. The Sooners narrowed the margin to three (17-14), but three kills by Hooker and two by Engle pushed the edge to 23-18. A Faucette kill and a Paolini solo block closed out the frame, 25-20.

The Longhorns used a 4-0 run highlighted by a kill from Faucette and Hooker to take a 9-4 edge early in the fourth set and widened the margin to 15-9 when Engle paced a 4-0 UT run with three kills. Oklahoma managed to shrink the lead to four (20-16), but Engle was too strong late in the set, hammering out two kills to lift the Horns to a 25-19 win.

Texas returns to action Saturday, Oct. 4 when it plays host to No. 17 Kansas State at Gregory Gymnasium. First serve is set for 6:30 p.m.

POST-MATCH NOTES
· Texas' victory over Oklahoma moved its all-time record to 33-1 all-time against the Sooners.
· The attendance at tonight's match was 1,356, the fourth-largest crowd in OU Volleyball history.
· Ashley Engle's 13 kills and 18 digs against the Sooners both set new season-highs for the junior All-American.  Engle picked up her second kill/dig double-double of the season and the 25th of her Texas career.
· Lauren Paolini' 14 kills against OU set a new season-high mark for the senior All-American.
· Freshman setter Michelle Kocher's 57 assists against Oklahoma set a new career-high.
· The Longhorns out-blocked the Sooners, 8.5-to-4.0 on the night and out-hit OU, .318-to .172.

TEXAS QUOTES
HEAD COACH Jerritt Elliott
General statement: After making quite a few errors in the first set, it was nice that we were able to get back on track and win the next three sets. We had a difficult time finding our rhythm tonight and once we got in system we did some nice things. We had trouble adjusting at times, but we made some nice adjustments and were able to come away with a quality Big 12 road victory.

On the serve/receive game: We really need to work on our concentration and focus when we are serving. I know that we are good serving team, but we need to translate that from the practice gym to game action. Once we begin to think as a whole and understand our systems we are going to be very successful.

On the four hitters posting double-digit kill totals: I think we worked a little more on our side-out game this week and I feel like it was a little smoother. I thought we received the serve well and we were able to take advantage of our size and physicality advantage that we had in the match.