Nov. 17, 2007

Box Score

Huntington, W. Va. - A year of firsts will continue for The University of Tulsa volleyball squad, as the Golden Hurricane defeated top-seeded and host Marshall in a five-game thriller, 3-2 (19-30, 32-30, 24-30, 34-32, 21-19) before a crowd of 909 at the Cam Henderson Center on the Marshall campus. TU advances to face UAB in Sundays Championship Match, aired live on CSTV at 5 p.m. (CST). This is the first time the Hurricane will play for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Senior Fabiola Nepomuceno led the Hurricane attack with a career-best 31 kills, while fellow senior Julia Silva posted her 10th triple-double of the season with 12 kills, 62 assists and 16 digs. A total of five TU players recorded double-digits in kills on the night. Freshmen Hannah Stout and Emma Ridley posted 13 and 11 kills, respectively, while junior Renee Brooks recorded 10 kills for TU.

As a team, TU hit .240, had 81 kills, 72 digs, seven service aces and 11 team blocks.

"To come in here and play as well as we did against an unbelievable team like Marshall is great," said TU head coach Ed Allen. "They have four seniors who had outstanding careers. The significance of this is that we didn't just come in and beat a good team, we beat a very good team and that is really special for us."

Tulsa improves to 26-9 on the year, while Marshall concludes the season with a 23-9 record after winning the regular-season title with a 15-1 league record. The Thundering Herd defeated TU 3-1 earlier this season in Huntington as well.

"The opportunity to play UAB, in a matchup that we lost earlier this season, for the championship is going to be special," Allen said. "We have to play better defense and match the effort we put out tonight. It should be a very entertaining match."