HOUSTON – Louisiana Tech's volleyball team fell 3-0 (25-12, 25-17, 25-17) to the Rice Owls in Sunday afternoon's Conference USA opener.
 
Rice, who was projected as the top squad in the west in the C-USA's Preseason Poll, used timely runs to turn early ties into set victories. Preseason All-C-USA honorees Nicole Lennon and Anota Adekunle paced the Owls with 13 and 11 kills, respectively, as Rice hit .411 for the match.
 
"We knew coming into today that containing Rice's high-powered offense would be a challenge that we had to step up to in order to have a chance in this match," head coach Amber McCray said. "We obviously can't let a great team hit over .400 and expect to win.
 
"Good news is we get to come back tomorrow and make some adjustments that put us in a better position to compete."
 
LA Tech and Rice battled back and forth early in each of the first two sets. Both the first and second sets were tied at 8-8 before Rice broke away from the Lady Techsters. An 8-0 stretch turned a deadlocked score in the first set into a 16-8 advantage for the Owls. Rice's Elizabeth Labue provided clean service behind the line to help ignite the run.
 
In the second set, Tech battled back from an early 8-4 deficit to knot the set at 8-8. Freshman Ainsley Yanz subbed in following a Rice service error to spark the set-tying 3-0 spurt. Yanz notched one of her team's two service aces on the day to trim the lead to one after junior Jordyn Carswell had just slammed home a kill to reduce Rice's lead to two.
 
The Owls slowed Tech's momentum and reeled off 10 of the next 12 points to jump ahead for good in the second stanza. Rice hit .414 for the set en route to a 25-17 win.
 
The Lady Techsters tallied the first point of the third and final set when junior Abigail Hildenbrand set up senior Emily Boylan for the kill. The Owls broke away from Tech with a 5-0 run early in the final set before notching a 25-17 victory.
 
Hildenbrand led Tech with 14 assists while also finishing second with six digs for the match. Boylan hammered a team-high eight kills on 19 total attempts to finish with a .316 hitting percentage for the match.
 
Tech closes out its weekend set against the Owls on Monday at 1 p.m. in the Tudor Fieldhouse.
 
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