Courtesy: Texas A&M Athletics
PRAGUE – The Texas A&M volleyball opened its foreign training tour today with a 3-1 victory over Olymp Praha, a 17-and-under team that is preparing for the Czech Youth Championships next weekend.
The Aggies, who arrived in Prague Saturday afternoon, fell behind early in the first set as Olymp Praha built an 11-7 lead. A&M chipped away at the deficit and used a 6-1 run to take its first lead, 18-14. Olymp Praha scored consecutive points to get within 18-17, but it was the closest they would get, with freshman middle blocker Mallory Talbert getting a kill to close out A&M’s 25-18 win.
A&M used a 5-0 spurt to take an 8-4 lead in the second set. The Aggies continued to pull away and completed the 25-15 win with three consecutive points, including another set-clinching kill by Talbert.
Olymp Praha doubled-up the Aggies, 14-7 in the third set, but A&M once again come from behind to get the win. A&M fought off one set point to tie the score at 24-24, and sophomore-to-be outside hitter Samantha Sanders served an ace to give the Aggies their first lead since 3-2. Olymp Praha fought off one set point with a kill before outside hitter Hollann Hans and setter Camille Conner connected on back-to-back kills to secure the victory.
Although A&M had already won the match, 3-0, the teams agreed to play a fourth set. The team from Prague pulled away and built its largest lead at 23-15. A&M got back within 24-20 before an A&M attack error ended the set.
The Aggies will take on the Olymp Praha professional team on Monday afternoon.
Fans will be able to keep up to date on the Texas A&M volleyball team’s travels on 12thMan.com and Facebook as well as on Twitter and Instagram by following @AggieVolleyball.
Texas A&M postmatch quotes:
Texas A&M head coach Bird Kuhn
On her thoughts of the first match of the trip…
“For the first match of the trip, it was a good showing, getting here, getting acclimated to the time change physically, mentally. They settled in. It was kind of sloppy at first, but they settled
in and we pulled it out the first three sets and then needed to keep it sharp in the fourth.”
On her thoughts on tomorrow’s match…
“Tomorrow the layout is good for this trip. The competition is going to be stronger as we go so we need to be clean—ball control, defense all those things. We need to sharpen up our focus on that side of the ball, defensively and ball control. Everything else should fall into place, but it will get stronger as we go, so that will be exciting for us.”
On the trip thus far…
“It’s been good. It was a long day of travel yesterday but it was good. Today was fun with them, hanging out, walking through the castle. We took some stairs, but that was good for them, a little warm-up.
Travel Itinerary:
May 11 Depart College Station
May 12-14 Prague, Czech Republic
May 15 Vienna, Austria (day trip)
May 15-17 Maribor, Slovenia
May 18-19 Rovinj/Pula/Umag, Croatia
May 20 Venice Italy
May 21-22 Milan, Italy
May 23 Return to College Station
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