Volleyball suffers losses to Rice, Tulsa

Thursday – SMU Mustangs vs. RiceOwls

Despite strong guidance from veteran leaders and promisingperformances from three up-and-coming freshmen, the Mustangvolleyball team fell to No. 27 Rice in a 3-0 game Thursday night atMoody Coliseum.

Senior Beth Karasek led SMU, racking up yet anotherdouble-double with 22 kills and 10 digs, while junior setterJessica Mihm amassed 39 assists and a .625 hitting percentage oneight attack attempts.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to fend off Rice’sRebecca Pazo, whose offensive talents from the outside proved toomuch in the end.

Pazo, who hit an almost unheard of .500 percent with 18 kills,helped the Owls fly to a 20-3 (9-1 WAC) record with match victoriesover SMU 30-20, 30-25 and 36-34.

Though the loss dropped the Mustangs to 7-9 (3-7 WAC), severalfreshmen made noticeable contributions. Freshman middle blockerKara Cornelius had four blocks, freshman outside hitter RachelGiubilato recorded six kills and eight digs and freshman outsidehitter Caitlin Rainbird had seven kills in her first appearanceduring the regular season.

The Mustangs were disappointed with the loss, but were ready totake on Tulsa (14-8, 3-7 WAC), confident the match was practicallya sure-win.

Saturday – SMU Mustangs vs. TulsaHurricanes

So much for the sure-win. SMU dropped yet another game to Tulsaon Saturday (30-27, 26-30, 30-24, 30-28) knocking the team down to7-9 and 2-8 in the WAC — not exactly what they were hopingfor at this point in the season.

The Mustangs did manage to come away with one game in the match,and had a couple of key performances from members of the team.

Karasek had her third straight 20-plus kill match with 24 killsas well as a double-double with 16 digs.

Giubilato and Rainbird combined for 24 kills, 24 digs and threeblocks. Giubilato had an impressive match on defense with 19 digswhile Rainbird had 16 kills on offense.

Mihm put up stats in all categories with 49 assists, 14 digs,seven kills, two blocks and an ace.

But the play on SMU’s side of the net was not enough topush past to what should have been a ‘W’ for theMustangs.

Three Hurricanes players put up over .300 percent in hittingaverages, and the team ended up with the edge they needed to putthe Mustangs away.

SMU’s next match is against out-of-conference Sam HoustonState at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Moody Coliseum.