UTPB volleyball will be back at home this week for its next round of Lone Star Conference games.
Even better, the Falcons won’t have to worry about playing on Friday and then hit the road for another game the next day.
UTPB (9-4 overall, 2-2 in Lone Star Conference) will face Texas Woman’s University (8-5, 2-2) at 6 p.m. Thursday at Falcon Dome.
The team will then face Midwestern State (7-8, 1-3) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Falcon Dome.
For UTPB head coach CJ Allard and his players, it’s a godsend after being on the road for last week’s games but also having to play two conference games within the span of 24 hours.
“It’s amazing,” Allard said at a press conference Monday. “Almost all of our matches have been played in standing room only crowds and our team feeds off that and to have that for a big match against Texas Woman’s and turn around and play Midwestern State on Saturday, our team is looking forward to that.”
The Falcons are coming off a split week which began with a loss in straight sets against Texas A&M-Kingsville on Friday before the team recovered with a 3-1 victory against Texas A&M International.
Allard is thankful to have two games played two days apart this week.
“I love Thursday-Saturdays,” Allard said. “If we could find a way to keep Thursday-Saturday games, it’s a glorious schedule. Friday-Saturday is such a quick turnaround, but the rest of the conference is doing that, too.”
As for last week’s loss against Texas A&M-Kingsville, there wasn’t anything positive for Allard to say in the game in which the Falcons lost by scores of 25-22, 25-21, 25-16.
“We were horrific on Friday,” Allard said. “That certainly starts with me. We were terrible in every facet of the game and when that happens, it’s on the coach. On Saturday, we came out and handed International its first loss in conference play first loss since we last played them. They had been playing pretty well and we knew it was going to take a much better performance on Saturday than what we did on Friday.”
Allard was proud of the way his team was able to respond in Saturday’s win against Texas A&M International.
“The biggest thing we talked about was that Friday’s loss could not bleed into Saturday’s game,” Allard said. “There are a lot of teams that can’t flip the script. That was our biggest thing. Maybe we thought we were going to have a great match on Friday and it didn’t work out. Maybe we didn’t feel good going into Friday. But Saturday was a new day. There were multiple reasons why we flipped the script, but we knew we couldn’t sulk on Friday’s performance so I was pleased with how everyone was able to flip the script.”
UTPB defeated Texas A&M International by scores of 20-25, 25-17, 25-23, 25-21.
It was the first time in almost a month that UTPB had played a game that featured more than three sets.
“The reason it was longer match was because that first set was very reminiscent of Friday,” Allard said. “I was thinking ‘here we go again.’ But our players settled down. There were a few minor things that we were able to fix in the second set.”
The Lone Star Conference standings remain packed as three teams sit in a tie for first place including St. Mary’s (12-3, 4-0), West Texas A&M (11-3, 4-0) and UT-Tyler (7-5,4-0).
UTPB is one of four teams that has a 2-2 showing in the conference. The other three are Texas A&M-Kingsville (10-5, 2-2), Lubbock Christian (6-8, 2-2) and Texas Woman’s.
Texas Woman’s is coming off a sweeping victory against Sul Ross State from Saturday.
