Oct. 7, 2005
Final Stats
In front of an excited crowd at the University Rec Center, the Horned Frog volleyball squad defeated Air Force in four games (30-22, 28-30, 30-18, 30-15) to capture their first Mountain West Conference win. Freshman Nirelle Hampton recorded her first career triple-double with 41 assists, 15 digs and 11 kills. Sophomore Talaya Whitfield set a new career-high in aces with seven. The Frogs shattered the previous school record of 17 aces by firing 20.
"We played great tonight," states TCU head coach Prentice Lewis. "We played intense, the bench was loud." It was a great performance overall.
In a match that featured scoring runs by both teams, the Frogs started with an 8-2 run to start. Whitfield and junior Anna Vaughn led the team in the first game combining for 10 kills.
Air Force made several runs in an effort to even the score, but the TCU defense was able to stall the runs and held them to .138 hitting percentage. Hampton helped the defensive effort with five digs and freshman Pamela Gehrke came off the bench to tally four digs as the Frogs pushed to a 30-22 victory.
Despite leading in every statistical category, the Purple and White fell in game two
30-28. The home team committed 10 errors in the game.
"If you make a lot of errors, it will be tough to win," explains Lewis. "We have to eliminate the errors to give our team the best chance to win."
The Frogs quickly eliminated the errors as they only committed four in the third game and hammered the Falcons 30-18. Hitting .314, six different Frogs killed two or more balls. Junior Calli Corley was efficient with her serve tallying three aces.
After a short delay towards the end of game three, TCU could sense MWC win number one was only a game away and doubled-up the opponent (30-15) for the win.
In their most balanced effort of the season, the Frogs had two players finish with double-digit kills and four others finished with seven or more. The team also had three players finish with double-digit digs as Hampton and Whitfield recorded 15 and 12 respectively and sophomore
Loren Barry tied her career-high with 21.
Vaughn finished with 19 kills while hitting .529.
"We came out ready to fight," stated Vaughn. "Conference play started a little tough for us ,[losses to No. 16 BYU and to defending conference champion Utah] so we prepared well this week and came focused to play."
Hampton's triple-double was the first recorded by a Horned Frog this season.
With the win, TCU improved to 11-6 on the season and 1-2 in conference play. The squad will go for the weekend sweep tomorrow when they host New Mexico at 7 p.m.
Admission to the match is free to the general public.
