HOUSTON – The Louisiana Tech volleyball team opened the 2018 season with a 3-0 (9-25, 20-25, 22-25) defeat  to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) on Friday in the opening match of the HBU Classic at Sharp Gym.
 
Freshman outside hitter Lara Hendricks paced the Tech offense with a team high nine kills, while sophomore outside hitter Carter Mirich racked up eight kills of her own. Tech's two setters in Mia Prostran and Abigail Hildenbrand dished out 12 and 10 assists, respectively. Junior libero Morgan Currie racked up a team-high 12 digs.
 
UTRGV outhit the Lady Techsters .315 to 0.69 and accumulated 10 service aces to Tech's five.
 
In the first set, UTRGV raced out to an early 19-9 lead, and then junior Barbara Silva won the final six serves of the frame, including a pair of aces to give UTRGV a 25-9 first-set victory.
 
In the second frame, the Lady Techsters responded, hitting .250 (13-5-32) in the set, led by four kills apiece for Hendricks and Mirich. Tech trailed 13-7, and then rattled off six of the next eight points, to cut the deficit to just two. However, UTRGV had a response and pushed its lead back out to five, before taking the second set, 25-20.
 
Tech took its largest lead of the match in the third set, when a thunderous kill from Hendricks put Tech up 15-12, forcing a UTRGV timeout. UTRGV came out of the timeout and secured eight straight points to take a 20-15 lead. Trailing 21-17, Tech buckled down and capitalized on a pair of UTRGV errors along with two service aces from Prostran to take a late lead at 22-21. However, Tech ended the frame with four attack errors, as UTRGV secured a 25-22 third-set triumph, claiming the match.
 
Tech will be back in action against the host Huskies at 6 p.m. CT. The match will be streamed live and live stats will be provided on the LA Tech Volleyball schedule page at LATechSports.com.