North Texas (2-1) vs UT Arlington (1-2)
Aug. 30, 2011 - 7:00 p.m.
Mean Green Volleyball Center - Denton, Texas
Last Meeting: UTA 3-2 in 2010 (Arlington, Texas)
Match Notes
Webcast
DENTON, Texas – The Mean Green volleyball team showed its mettle last weekend at the Lamar Invitational, and now it’s your turn to see them in person. North Texas will take on cross-town rival UT Arlington on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at the Mean Green Volleyball Center.
North Texas and UT Arlington share a rich rivalry that dates back to 1976 and includes 53 meetings. The Mavericks took last year’s meeting in Arlington in five sets. Tuesday’s match, as with every Mean Green volleyball home match, will be webcast for free on meangreensports.com.
The Mean Green set a new school record for attack percentage against Texas Southern last Saturday. NT hit .527 on the Tigers, smashing the eight-year old school record of .493 set against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2003. Courtney Windham and Eboni Godfrey led the NT attack with 15 and 13 kills, respectively, and both hit over .600 in the match. Playing in just her third collegiate match, Hallie McDonald landed nine kills on 10 attacks for an .800 attack percentage.
Godfrey earned Lamar Invitational All-Tournament honors, becoming the first NT freshman to earn an all-tournament nod since 2008 (Brittany Brown, Arkansas Invitational). Godfrey landed 3.27 kills per set for the weekend, including a team-high 14 against Lamar. Also an asset on the defensive end, Godfrey posted outings of 11 and 19 digs. Overall, newcomers accounted for 65 percent of NT’s offense over the weekend.
Sarah Willey continued her climb up the Mean Green dig charts last weekend at the Lamar Invite. The senior dug up 49 attacks to give her 1,317 career digs, passing former All-American Corina Marginas (1,282) for second place. Willey is just one of two players in NT history to record a 500-dig season (559 in 2010).
North Texas was picked to repeat as Sun Belt West Division champions on the annual preseason poll. The Mean Green, coming off the program’s first 20-win campaign and West Division title since 2006, garnered a division-high 65 points and seven first-place votes. Arkansas State picked up 60 points and four first-place votes.
