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AUSTIN, Texas -- The third-ranked and fourth-seeded Texas Volleyball used a .494 team hitting percentage to sweep Texas State, 3-0, in the first round of NCAA Tournament play, Friday night at Gregory Gymnasium. The Longhorns' 30-21, 30-20, 30-13 victory advanced Texas to a second round match up with LSU, which defeated New Mexico State, 3-2, in first round action.

The victory improves the Longhorns season mark to 25-3, while the Bobcats finished their season 21-12. Texas' team hitting percentage was a season-best and ranks fourth highest all-time at UT. Junior middle blocker Lauren Paolini paced the Horns to victory with 12 kills on .800 hitting, while senior middle blocker Brandy Magee registered 10 kills on .833 hitting. Sophomore outside hitter Destinee Hooker chipped in 12 kills, a .524 attack mark and tied a career-high with four solo blocks.

In game one, Texas State kept the score close and claimed its first lead of the game at the 19-18 mark. The Longhorns battled back to reclaim the lead at the 21-20 mark and used a 9-0 run highlighted by a pair of aces by sophomore opposite hitter Ashley Engle to close out the frame, 30-21.

Texas jumped out with a 5-2 run to start the second stanza on a block by Engle, Paolini and Hooker and stretched the lead to 10-4 on a service ace by Hooker. The Horns pushed the lead to nine at the 17-8 mark and widened the margin to 11 on a Texas State error at the 27-16 mark. Texas eventually closed out the game, 30-20 on Magee's fourth kill of the game.

The Longhorns broke a three-all tie early in the third frame, putting together a 14-1 run paced by four kills and two solo blocks by Hooker that put UT ahead, 17-4. Texas widened the margin to 15 on an Engle kill at the 24-9 mark and used a solo block and a kill by Hooker down the stretch to seal the victory, 30-13.

Senior setter Michelle Moriarty steadied the Texas attack on the night with 44 assists and five digs, while freshman outside hitter Juliann Faucette highlighted the defense with a match-high nine digs. Faucette added nine kills and Engle tallied eight kills on .368 hitting in the Longhorns' victory.

Texas returns to action at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1 when it takes on LSU in the NCAA Second Round.

POSTGAME NOTES
TEXAS
· Texas moved to 21-0 all-time in NCAA Tournament First Round play.
· Texas moved to 24-0 all-time in their opening game of NCAA Tournament play.
· Texas leads the all-time series with Texas State 36-9, including a 12-3 mark in Austin.
· Texas extended its season winning streak to 21 matches.
· Texas extended its home winning streak to 19 games.
· Lauren Paolini posted a career-high .800 attack percentage in the match, topping her previous best of .778.
· Brandy Magee equaled her career-high attack percentage with an .833 mark.
· Destinee Hooker tied a career-high with four solo blocks.

TEXAS STATE
· Kacey Wimpy pushed her school single-season record for digs to 542.
· Amy Weigle ended the season ranked fourth on TXST's single-season attack percentage list with a .344 mark.
· Weigle ended the season ranked fourth on TXST's career attack percentage list with a .295 mark.

POSTGAME QUOTES
TEXAS HEAD COACH Jerritt Elliott
Opening statement: I was very proud of our team tonight. I felt that Texas State came out and played exceptionally in game one. They gave it their best shot, played very well, and sided out at a very high percentage. I was pretty excited to see the kind of composure that our team was able to have and sustain. That's what the NCAA tournament is all about and I told our freshmen, "Welcome to the NCAA tournament," after game one. When you play at this level, obviously being a number one seed, teams are coming after you and you have a target on your back. The composure and steadiness that we showed along with the ability to execute at an extremely high level was really the key for our team to be successful tonight. Our ball control was really good. I thought Michelle did a nice job with the set distribution and we were able to attack at all facets of the net. We were very successful in that area and as the match went along we got very consistent with our blocking and overall we competed extremely well against a very good Texas State team.

On Juliann Faucette's play in her first NCAA game: She told me today that I can call her "NCAA J." I think she was pretty excited to be a part of it. She is a rare freshman. We've been very fortunate these last few years with Ashley (Engle) and now Juliann to have someone who is as talented as that, as mentally tough and who loves to play on center stage. In terms of being a competitor and dealing with the anxiety of playing center stage, she welcomes that, and that is very comforting for me as a coach.

On the competition of the upcoming rounds: It's exciting. The tournament is about surviving, advancing and finding ways to win to get to that next level. Our next focus and our only focus right now is LSU. Each step that you take the competition continues to get tougher and tougher. I personally believe this is the strongest competition the NCAA tournament has ever assembled. The top teams are very competitive. Rally scoring has changed our sport a lot in terms of allowing more upsets, so it's exciting and it's big advantage to be at home. We had a great crowd tonight. We have a lot of respect for LSU and Fran Flory is a UT alum. They are a very capable team and a very scary team.

JUNIOR MIDDLE BLOCKER Lauren Paolini
On the play of the middles tonight: Lately we have been working on getting the middles more sets, so the rhythm of the game was really good. It was really nice for the middles to have all of those opportunities. Of course Michelle [Moriarty] was really good with her sets and made it really easy to move the ball around and put it down.

SOPHOMORE OUTSIDE HITTER Destinee Hooker
On her reaction to good points: As soon as the ball is down, that's the time I get to relax, that's how I see it. We've worked on so much in practice about where to place the ball, so when you do a good job, you get to relax and go on to the next play.

SENIOR SETTER Michelle Moriarty
On the team's reaction to game one: I think we had a really good rhythm going into game one, but Texas State fought really hard and played really well in game one. We kind of steadied out and kept our composure, like coach said. It is good for us to have that momentum going into the next match.

On the play of the middles: I think this has been a common theme with our middles. They have done a great job all season long. We have been talking about getting more sets to the middle and they do a good job of being available for me, so that makes my job of getting the ball to them easy. They did a great job tonight and they put up some really good numbers. Even against the double block they were able to put the ball away which is great for me as a setter.

TEXAS STATE HEAD COACH KAREN CHISUM
Opening statement: I hope that we will see Texas at Sacramento because they are a talented and deep team. There is nothing to be ashamed of, I've very proud of our young group of ladies that worked hard all season. We talked a lot about how it's a serving-passing game and I tell them that most all volleyball games you're going to win require aggressive serving, passing the ball well and running a good offense. Texas won the game. Overall I am extremely proud of our kids, but I was a little disappointed about the third game but it is easy to get frustrated when you're against a 6'5" block that keeps going on your side. But again, I thought our kids did a really good job.

On keeping up with Texas in the first game: We played them point-for-point for a while, but then we had two mental errors and it went downhill. Unfortunately we have been a high-error team all season, but we are a young team and we will be getting better. This is a very talented group, but we also have to work on our mental game. I am very proud of these kids and I don't want anybody to take anything away from what they have accomplished getting here, going into our conference tournament as the number five seed.

JUNIOR OUTSIDE HITTER LAWRENCIA BROWN
On the team's game plan: We just wanted to go and have fun. We need to have the mentality that we will do our best and play our game. The whole time, we were in our locker room challenging each other to do what we need to do and play our game.

JUNIOR MIDDLE BLOCKER EMILY JONES
On the Texas middle blockers: You can look at the numbers and see that they are amazing. They can jump higher than we can and we all know that. We can train all you want, but in games we need to have low errors and get every dig that we can possibly touch. The Texas middle blockers are amazing; they obviously had it right every time, so we need to get better.