North Texas Daily

North Texas volleyball swept Jackson State University in the opening match of the North Texas Challenge Friday morning.

“I thought we served really well today and hit our spots that we were talking about,” head coach Andrew Palileo said. “We served aggressively, for the most part, all day, as you can attest to the aces we were able to get.”

The Mean Green (5-2) started off the match by cruising to a 25-17 win in the first set. Jackson State (0-4) did not have much of an answer to the North Texas attack, which tallied 15 kills and held a hitting percentage of .367.

The second set proved to be an even more dominant performance for North Texas as they won by a score of 25-13. Jackson State struggled to get an attack going, having more errors than kills and hitting a -.040 percentage in the set.

The third set was much cleaner for the Tigers as they found a bit of a rhythm. However, North Texas proved to be too strong, as they took the third and final set by a mark of 25-21. North Texas finished the match with a total score of 53.0 points, 41 kills and a season-high 11 aces.

“I thought we communicated really well and had really good energy throughout the entire play,” junior outside hitter Avery McCrillis said. “There were a couple [of] downslopes, but we always picked it back up and got the point out of it.”

The Mean Green were missing senior outside hitter Rhett Robinson, who was unavailable to play. Robinson currently leads the team in kills and ranks in the top five for digs as well as blocks. Her absence led to multiple players stepping up. McCrillis led the team with four aces and had nine kills, tying freshman outside hitter Addison Corley for the team lead in kills.

“They haven’t had a lot of playing time and experience, so we gotta accelerate their learning on the fly,” Palileo said. “It’s a next person up mentality, so they had the opportunity to play and compete.”

North Texas has two matches left in the North Texas Challenge, with a game against Montana State University Friday night and one against Abilene Christian University Saturday afternoon. The team’s main focus is on preparation for the upcoming games.

“We’re going out there to scout and make sure that we know what’s going to happen and how they’re going to play,” McCrillis said. “We need to play our game when we’re playing them.”

Featured Image: Graduate student Kaliegh Skopal celebrates after the Mean Green scores a kill against Abilene Christian on Sept. 11, 2021, a game part of this year’s North Texas Challenge. Photo by Zachary Thomas