Newcomers make their presence felt early

By Brett Medeiros / Staff Writer -

The UNT volleyball team (2-1) took two of three matches at the Lamar Tournament this weekend, defeating a Lamar team that has historically given it trouble and splitting games against two teams it rarely faces.

Lamar The UNT volleyball team earned its fourth win in 20 matches against Lamar, defeating the Cardinals in four sets 3-1. To me its just us trying to play the best volleyball, said head coach Ken Murczek. The first match of the season is always one you cross your fingers on cause you never know what to expect.

After posting a kill percentage of 16 in the first set, the Mean Green regrouped and finished the final set with an impressive 32.5 kill percentage. Freshman outside hitter Eboni Godfrey and sophomore middle blocker Courtney Windham led the team with 14 kills apiece.

I was extremely nervous, Godfrey said. All the other girls just help so much and theyre so encouraging to where you barely feel any nerves at all.

The play of the game came in the second set when the ball hit Godfrey in the cheek and the team turned the dig into a Mean Green point to secure an 11-10 lead in the set. Godfrey was not hurt in the play and jumped right back into the match.

Houston Baptist After a strong showing against Lamar, UNT fell to the Houston Baptist University Huskies 3-1.

Taking the first set in the match, the Mean Green dropped three straight sets in the loss.

We had a little bit of communication issues and probably just a little bit of everything, senior middle blocker Melanie Boykins said. We didnt do what we needed to do on our side of the net.

A big contributor to the loss was the teams inability to put points on the board consistently, as UNT had a total kill percentage for UNT of .032.

It was a highly competitive match and I thought we would be OK, but we had just way too many errors, Murczek said. All the other team really had to do was just stand there.

The match was the first meeting between HBU and the Mean Green since 1988. Texas Southern Game two of Saturdays double-header faced UNT against the Texas Southern University Tigers. The Mean Green won in three straight sets 3-0.

I was really proud of the girls to be able to turn around and take this match, Murczek said. Everyone really came through.

UNT also broke an 8-year-old school record with an overall hitting percentage of .527 against TSU, overtaking the previous record of .493.

The Mean Green is now 3-0 all time against the Tigers.

Its really ironic how we hit so poorly earlier that day and turned it around later in the afternoon, Murczek said.

UNT volleyball finished the weekend strong, coming out of Beaumont with a 2-1 record heading into the first home match of the season against UT-Arlington. UT-Arlington Preview Coming home for the first match of the season in the Mean Green Village Volleyball Complex, the Mean Green will host the Texas-Arlington Mavericks.

UTA has dominated the series, winning 48 of the 53 games played between the two teams.

Its always nice to play back at your home venue, Murczek said. Theyve got great players on the left side, and I think being at home well have a great crowd.

One of the Mean Greens new players, sophomore libero Kendall Whitson, has experience playing with the Mavericks before transferring to UNT this last season from UTA.

Its going to be kinda weird, Whitson said. But there was no hard feeling between us and its gonna be a fun game to play.

The match starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday as the Mean Green looks to win its third match of the early season.

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