University of Tennessee Athletics
University of Tennessee
8-21, 1-14SEC
Texas A&M
17-8, 9-5SEC
Lady Vols Drop SEC Match at Texas A&M
November 16, 2014 | Volleyball
UT (8-21, 1-14 SEC) finished the match with a hitting efficiency of .164 while A&M (17-8, 9-5) turned in a .312 clip. Defensively, Tennessee had 6.0 total team blocks on the afternoon, getting five block assists from freshman Iesha Bryant. The Texas-native also had six kills in the match.
Sharing the team lead for kills, Jimenez also paced the Lady Vols in digs with 12. Libero Megan Hatcher was right behind her with 10. Taylor Johnson finished with 19 assists and Lexi Dempsey added 11.
Tennessee hung tight in set one, answering virtually every Aggie run to keep the set in the balance throughout. After battling back from a couple three-point deficits early on, the Lady Vols threatened to take control of the frame when they rattled off a 4-1 run to get within a single point of A&M at 16-15. Jimenez came through with two of her team-high three kills in the set during that sequence. But the Aggies had another push in them -- a late 6-1 spurt that put them up for good.
In the second set, UT enjoyed a 7-5 lead early on after a Raina Hembry service ace capped a 4-1 Lady Vol run. The home side responded with six of the next seven points to regain the advantage at 11-8. A&M rode that momentum the rest of the way, grabbing a 2-0 lead in the match with a 25-14 win the second stanza.
After swinging .150 in the opening stanza, UT finished set two with a hitting percentage of just .051. Mariani led the Lady Vols with three kills in the frame. On the other side, A&M put down 15 kills for the second straight frame, doing so at a .333 attacking clip.
Facing a 2-0 deficit, Tennessee shot out of the gates in the third set to a 11-5 advantage. UT hit .353 over the initial sequence, piecing together an 8-2 run that featured kills from five different Lady Vols and back-to-back block assists from Bryant. The Aggies chipped steadily away, though, eventually recapturing the lead at 14-13.
The two sides traded points over the ensuing sequence -- A&M never leading by more than two and UT never closer than a single point -- until a combined block from Jamie Lea and Bryant finally knotted the score at 19-19. On the next point, Lea gave UT the lead with a big kill down the line, but A&M would answer with two unanswered points. A Jimenez kill and an Aggie error put UT on the brink of a third set win at 23-22, but A&M rattled off the final three points of the frame to seal the match.
In the end, the tightly contested third set featured nine ties and six lead changes. Jamie Lea notched all of her five kills for the match in the frame in helping UT to a .279 hitting mark -- its highest of the afternoon.
The win was the fourth in a row in the series for A&M, which has now tied the all-time series with Tennessee at six wins apiece. UT falls to 2-3 in College Station.
Their late-season, three-match road trip now behind them, the Lady Vols return to Knoxville for a midweek contest against South Carolina on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET.
