Oct. 1, 2009

The Rice Owls volleyball team (10-3, 2-0) hosts UTEP (9-7, 2-1) on Friday at 7 p.m. and Tulane (7-4, 3-0) on Sunday at 1 p.m. in a pair of Conference USA matches. Both events take place in Tudor Fieldhouse on the Rice campus. The Green Wave of Tulane won last year's regular season and conference championships and currently share first place with Marshall (15-2, 3-0).

Recently
Rice began the 2009 Conference USA schedule with two nice out-of-town victories last weekend. The Owls won at Memphis 3-0 and at UAB 3-1 last Friday and Sunday respectively. Ashleigh McCord led Rice with 30 kills and 25 digs in the two matches. Jenn McClean followed with 25 kills and 27 digs. The Owls have now won seven of their last eight Conference USA matches.

100 Victories for Volpe
Rice head coach Genny Volpe sports a school and overall coaching mark of 100-64 in six years at Rice. She led the Owls to their first-ever NCAA appearance in 2004 and again in 2008. She picked up win number 100 at UAB (3-1) last Sunday.

Schamun Setter of the Week
Rice Owls volleyball player Meredith Schamun was named as Conference USA's co-Setter of the Week (Sept. 28). Schamun, a junior from Murrieta, Calif., led Rice to a pair of C-USA road wins over Memphis and UAB. She finished the weekend averaging 13.71 APS, including 58 assists in a four-set win at UAB. Schamun also had 10 digs against the Blazers for her fifth double-double of the season. This is Schamun's first Setter of the Week honor this season and fourth of her career.

Senior Owl Attack
Rice is led in hitting percentage by senior middle blocker Natalie Bogan at .381 with a team-high 162 kills and 27 errors in 354 attempts. Senior Jessie Boulavsky is second on the squad with a .308 attack percentage (100-23-250).

Three Over 3.00
The Owls have three athletes that are averaging 3.00 kills or more per set. Sophomore outside hitter Ashleigh McCord leads the team at 375 kps. Senior Natalie Bogan is at 3.31 kps, while senior Jenn McClean follows at 3.00.

Milestones
Libéro Tracey Lam has 1,331 digs in her career and needs 75 more to hold the Rice career record. Yvette Kirk is the current record with 1,405. Lam ranks 12th in the nation in digs per set at .5.37, which is tops in C-USA.

Junior setter Meredith Schamun has 3,180 assists, which ranks fifth at Rice. Schamun ranks 13th in the nation and first in C-USA with a 11.55 assist average.

Looking Forward
The Owls play at Houston on Wed., Oct. 7, before hosting Tulsa (Oct. 9) and SMU (Oct. 10).