DENTON - In its home Conference USA opener, the North Texas volleyball team handed Florida International its first loss in league play with a 3-1 (25-21, 25-22, 17-25, 25-17) win over the Panthers on Sunday afternoon.
"It was a good win for us," head coach Andrew Palileo said. "We blocked and defended pretty well. It was a combination of putting together things that we worked on, along with our serving really helped us out with the win today."
Sophomore Valerie Valerian recorded her sixth-straight double-double with a team-high 19 kills and 10 digs. In that six-match span, she is averaging 4.08 kills per set and 3.52 digs per set.
"My mindset was just to go up and be aggressive," Valerian said.
Freshman Rhett Robinson joined Valerian in double-digits with 17 kills at a .467 clip, along with seven digs and three blocks.
"We worked a lot this week about being smarter, working around the block and changing up our hits," Robinson said.
The Mean Green (6-13, 2-1 C-USA) led wire-to-wire in the first set, leading by as many as five after Valerian and Robinson combined for three-straight kills to put UNT ahead 17-12. After FIU (10-6, 3-1 C-USA) tied it up at 19-19, the Mean Green closed the set on a 6-2 run.
The second frame, which saw seven of the match's eight lead changes, ended in North Texas' favor after another late push. The Panthers scored four-straight points to go on top 16-15, but Valerian and Robinson registered a pair of kills each in a 7-2 run to regain the lead at 22-19 and force an FIU timeout. Valerian iced the set with two more kills to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
After dropping set three, the Mean Green responded by running out to a 9-4 lead and rattling off a 7-1 run to push the lead to 19-10.
"We lean on our culture and we weren't going to let it falter in that fourth set," Valerian said.
The North Texas offense was firing on all cylinders in the final set, finishing with just one attack error late in the set, led by six kills from Robinson.
"In the past, we've kind of fallen apart at that point in sets, but we weren't going to let that happen in that set," Robinson said.
UP NEXT
North Texas continues a four-match C-USA homestand against Florida Atlantic at 7 p.m. Friday.
QUICK HITTERS
- Over the last five matches, the Mean Green are averaging 2.2 blocks per set.
- Karley York recorded her fifth-straight double-double with 43 assists and 10 digs.
- Kylie Brown tallied a career-high two aces.
- With six blocks in the win,
Sarah Haeussler set a career high.