TCU
Oklahoma
TCU Defeats Oklahoma
11/3/2004 12:00:00 AM
Nov. 3, 2004
NORMAN, Okla. - In the first-ever meeting between OU and TCU, the Horned Frogs won handily tonight in the Howard McCasland Field House on the OU campus. In four games (28-30, 30-19, 30-20, 30-19), TCU blazed to its fourth straight victory on the strength of outstanding offense from senior Dominika Szabo (22 kills and a .370 hitting avg.) and sophomore Anna Vaughn (19 kills and a .371 hitting avg.) among others.
OU took the first game despite TCU's beginning command. The Horned Frogs' errors took them out with unfortunate timing: the Sooners only held a lead at 11-10 and at the win 30-28. The Sooners' service receptions were weak and TCU capitalized on them from the get-go, but the Frogs' bad habit of service errors soon surfaced, blipping five in the first game alone. However, the Purple and White weakness, blocking, came on strong, especially up the middle. The team had 5.5 total team blocks in the first game, with junior Erin Estep helping out on four of them.
TCU firmly held the second game, 30-19, shooting out to a 9-2 start and led by as many as 14 points (26-14). The Frogs again kept up the blocking, mostly racking up the blocks off unsuccessful tip shots from the Sooners. The tip shots coming from the Frogs landed with much more success, as sophomore Anna Vaughn and senior Dominika Szabo exploited beyond the block as much as possible. TCU hit a blistering .469 in the second round while holding the Sooners to a .026 hitting percentage.
Estep opened the third game with a solo block and the Frogs again took the Sooners, this time 30-20. TCU again out-hit OU, going .242 against the Sooners' .082. By the end of the third game, freshman Talaya Whitfield had already tallied more than 20 digs.
The Frogs again got out to a 11-6 start and again easily won the fourth game, 30-19. All-told, the Frogs hauled in their best blocking performance of the year with 11.5 total team blocks and seven individually from Erin Estep. Talaya Whitfield dug 27 balls, senior Ellen Rehme hit 16 kills, sophomore Emily Allen hit 10 kills, and junior Erin Ludeke dished out 55 assists.
"This was a great win for us," Head Coach Prentice Lewis commented. "As a team we played great and hit a .287 and four players in double digits. It's a great feeling to come into a Big 12 atmosphere and come out with a solid win. It was probably tough for them to get up for this match in the middle of their conference season, whereas we were very excited and very pumped up for it."
TCU now owns a 18-8 overall record and still hold a 7-3 mark in Conference USA. Oklahoma falls to 10-12 on the season.
-www.gofrogs.com-
