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Madeline Bell/ The Sunflower

Junior Lily Liekweg celebrates a win against Temple on Sept. 23 at Charles Koch Arena. Liekweg had three assists and nine digs for the Shockers.

Women’s volleyball swept Temple in three sets. However, they had to overcome a six-point deficit in set two to seal a match win in the American Athletic Conference season opener on their home court. 

“We are down in the second set and we kind of just look at each other and say hey let’s do this and we did it,” junior outside hitter Brylee Kelly said. 

The Shockers beat Temple 3-0 (25-13) (25-21) (25-15) on Friday night. The offensive momentum in set one for the Shockers fell off in the second set. 

After falling behind on several attack errors, junior setter Kayce Litzau said she and her team used mental toughness to pull themselves together and play clean volleyball. 

“We were still consistent,” Litzau said. “Still aggressive but we were smart with the ball. We just got it in. I’d say it was quite a growth from earlier in the season where we might have given up and kept making errors.” 

After trailing Temple 11-5 in set two, Head Coach Chris Lamb stayed with his game plan and relied on strong defense in the back row to help keep the Shockers steady. 

“I mean I felt like we had a pretty good grasp of what they could do (Temple)  in each row so I wasn’t too concerned about being surprised so if we don’t get something like let’s hit it over and live to find another day and see if we can’t you know the next go around and we just played steady and executed,” Lamb said. 

Each player in the starting lineup besides junior libero Lily Liekweg collected a kill. 

“We are going to count on three girls to score for us and it’s going to be on nights when not all of them will and tonight it was great, great and good and then as we go finding more kills for (Morgan) Weber or (Morgan)  Stout or whoever sort of,” Lamb said. 

Kelly led the offense with nine kills on 24 attempted swings and had a .333 hitting percentage. She was named first team all conference last season. 

“If she can play physical all year she’ll be another first-team all conference player,” Lamb said. 

Up next, the Shockers will play their second conference match of the season against East Carolina on Sunday at noon.