Texas Tech Volleyball Takes on TCU in Midweek Tilt
November 17, 2015 | Women's Volleyball
Tech's win against West Virginia marked the first time since 2013 the Red Raiders have posted a season sweep of a conference foe.
Nov. 17, 2015
LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech volleyball (14-13, 3-10) travels to Fort Worth to battle TCU (17-8, 7-6) on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. at the University Recreation Center.
The match will be the eighth television contest for the Red Raiders this season, broadcast on FOX Sports Southwest Plus and on the FOX Sports Go app.
The winner of Wednesday's tilt between the Red Raiders and the Horned Frogs will take a 7-6 lead in the all-time series. Texas Tech has won three of the last five meetings with TCU, but fell earlier this season, 3-0, in Lubbock.
9 on Academic All-Big 12 Team - most of any university! Grubb - 1 of 3 w/ 4.0 GPA! https://t.co/n8Z89AZUMv #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/a1DEGzKWiO
-- TexasTech Volleyball (@TTUVball) November 17, 2015
The Horned Frogs have gone 4-4 since the last time the Red Raiders squared off with them, moving to a 17-8 record overall, 7-6 in Big 12 play. TCU continues to lead the conference in blocks per set, with Regan McGuire at the forefront stuffing 1.56 per frame, who is ranked ninth in the country. This season, she's racked up 137 blocks. She is also one of the leaders on the attack for the Horned Frogs, putting up 182 kills on a hitting clip of .300. Ashley Smith has the team-high of 258 kills, as Smith and McGuire make up two of the seven Horned Frogs with at least 100 kills in 2015.
NEXT ON THE AGENDA
The final home match of 2015 awaits the Red Raiders when they return to Lubbock. Texas Tech will face Iowa State on Senior Day on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 3 p.m. at the United Supermarkets Arena. The Cyclones (16-8, 9-4) defeated the Red Raiders, 3-0, in Ames in the second Big 12 match of the season.
CARLIE'S CLIMBIN'
With 28 digs against West Virginia, senior libero Carlie Foust moved from 10th to a tie for sixth in the Texas Tech single-season digs records with 444. She now sits two digs away from fifth and five from fourth in the standings. With three matches left this season, Foust has an opportunity to climb as high as second if she can continue her recent pace. It marks the fifth-straight season a Red Raider has broken into the top 10 in the category.
THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM
Foust won her third Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week award of 2015 on Nov. 16. With the honor, she is the first Red Raider in program history to win the award three times in one season. Her other two came on Aug. 31 and Sept. 28. She sits at second on the conference leaderboard in total digs (444) and digs per set (5.05). She's put up back-to-back matches of 20+ digs, giving her nine this season.
Congrats to Carlie Foust on winning her 3rd Big 12 Defensive POTW award in 2015! https://t.co/hSCjWWuszy #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/JLYB0BIode
-- TexasTech Volleyball (@TTUVball) November 16, 2015
The Red Raiders placed nine on the 2015 Academic All-Big 12 team on Tuesday. It was the most of any university in the conference and marked back-to-back years to have nine representatives. Headlining the group was junior Marguerite Grubb, who was one of three Big 12 student-athletes nominated with a 4.0 GPA. Jenna Allen, Brianna Grant and Ashley Morgan rounded out the first team honorees, while Lauren Douglass, Carlie Foust, Audrey Fragniere, Victoria Hinneburg and Alyssa Ybanez garnered second team accolades.
CLEAN SWINGS
Junior Lauren Douglass is in the midst of a special season donning the Scarlet and Black, ranked inside the top 40 in the country in hitting percentage at .382. For five-straight weeks, she led the Big 12 and was ranked in the top 15 in the country in the category, climbing all the way to No. 2 in the NCAA earlier in the season. Douglass owns the top three single-match hitting percentages in the conference this season, her best is a .688 clip against Columbia on Sept. 4. At Kansas State, she led the team in kills for the 12th time this season behind eight. She has hit .400 or better in 12 matches in 2015. If she stays above .358 over the next four matches, she'll set the Texas Tech hitting percentage single-season record.
SETTING THE TONE
The Red Raiders are 11-0 this season when winning the first set of a match. In those sets, Texas Tech has averaged an attack percentage of .319, with a season-high of .800 against Northeastern. The Red Raiders put up 13 kills on 15 attacks and only one error in that set on Sept. 5. Tech is 51-13 under coach Flora when claiming the first frame.
RECORDS WATCH
Two Red Raiders are moving closer to putting their names into the Texas Tech record books. With four matches left, Lauren Douglass has a hitting percentage of .382. If she stays above .358, she will have the school record for best hitting percentage in a single-season. On the career side of the record book, Marguerite Grubb is 135 assists from the 10th-best assist total, a figure she will almost certainly achieve next season if she doesn't hit it in 2015.
NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND
2015 is the first season the Big 12 utilized the video replay system and coaching challenges. The Big 12 and the Big Ten are the only two conferences in the NCAA that utilize the instant replay and coaching challenges. This season, head coach Don Flora is four-for-16 overall on challenges. Coaches will be permitted three challenges per match, and those challenges will have no effect on the number of allowed timeouts a team has remaining. The challenge must be lodged immediately following the rally and before the first referee's arm is extended to start the service for the next point. Only one challenge per rally will be allowed. Coaches will be allowed to request instant replay challenges only to review these instances:
-If the ball landed in or out
-If the ball made contact with a player
-If a net violation occurred
-Foot faults on a serve
