DENTON, Texas – Three Lady Techsters logged nine kills or more while sporting a hitting percentage over .300 in a 3-1 (25-11, 25-12, 23-25, 25-23) defeat at North Texas on Monday afternoon.
 
After dropping the first two sets, Louisiana Tech's volleyball team responded with a pair of strong sets to push the Mean Green on their home court. The Lady Techsters battled back from a three-point deficit and a four-point deficit to grit out a third-set victory.
 
LA Tech erased its 10-7 deficit by scoring eight of the next 13 points to tie the match at 15-15. A pair of combined blocks from Laura Ehieze and Elena Takova erased the early advantage for the Mean Green. The two teams then traded points until the score hit 21-21, which is when LA Tech pulled away for good with a 3-0 spurt to take a 24-21 lead. The Mean Green pulled within a point at 24-23, but a kill from Ehieze cemented Tech's 25-23 win in the third set.
 
LA Tech carried its momentum from the third set into the fourth stanza, jumping ahead 5-1 behind kills from Takova, Morgan Smith and Ehieze. The Mean Green rallied from the early deficit to close Tech's advantage to one point at 11-10, but LA Tech again used a short spurt to extend its lead.
 
Kills from Ehieze and Takova and a combined block from Smith and Jordyn Carswell helped the Techsters score three straight points to go up 14-10 in the fourth set. North Texas called a timeout to stop the Lady Techster run and then used a run of its own to go up 20-16. Tech closed the Mean Green advantage to just one point at 24-23, fighting off back-to-back match points before a kill from UNT's Rhett Robinson gave the Mean Green a 3-1 match triumph.
 
"This was a tale of two totally different matches," head coach Amber McCray said. "After such a disappointing start, I am so proud of the way our team responded in the last two sets against a team that features some of the top hitters in our league.
 
"This is the first match all year we have had three players with nine or more kills while all finishing the match hitting over .300, and that made a huge difference. Elena Takova has really turned it on offensively for us in the past few weeks to lead us, and she opened the door for some other players like Laura Ehieze and Liz Sandoval to score as well. We showed we can compete against a really solid team, and that's momentum we can build on heading into our final weekend."
 
LA Tech hit over .300 as a team in each of its final two sets, hitting at a clip of .333 and .364 in the final two sets of the match. Takova paced Tech for the second straight Monday C-USA match with 14 kills, recording a .313 hitting percentage on the day. Sophomore Elizabeth Sandoval hammered home nine kills on just 12 attempts to hit a team-best .583. Ehieze rounds out the trio of Tech attackers to record nine kills while hitting over .300 by tallying nine kills and a .353 hitting percentage on Monday.
 
Setter Abigail Hildenbrand dished out a season-high 38 assists while ranking third on the team with six digs. Natalie Honore led Tech with eight digs. Takova added to her team-high in kills with a team-best four block assists in Monday's match.
 
LA Tech returns to the Thomas Assembly Center for its final regular season matches on Sunday and Monday against UTEP. Sunday's match will begin at 1 p.m., while Monday's contest will start at noon.