Bulls Sweep the Competition at the UAB Invitational

Saturday, August 26

Birmingham, Ala.

1 p.m. ET

University at Buffalo

3-0,0-0MAC

Florida A&M

0-2,0-0SWAC

Florida A&M

Buffalo

Photo by: Paul Hokanson/UBBulls.com

Bulls Sweep the Competition at the UAB Invitational

8/26/2023 3:49:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The University at Buffalo women's volleyball team (3-0, 0-0 MAC) swept their competition at the UAB Invitational. After defeating Austin Peay and UAB on Friday, the Bulls took down the Florida A&M Rattlers, 3-1. This marks the first time since 2018 that the team is off to a 3-0 start to the season.

Mandy Leigh continues to shoot up the record books as she is now seventh in program history in career assists after her 34-assist performance. She passed Candi Simms (1993-96) as she is now up to 2,422 assists.

The win did not come easy for the Bulls as the Rattlers kept it a tight match. Florida A&M took an early 3-0 lead, but the Bulls then went on a 9-1 run to take a 9-4 lead. Down the stretch the Bulls forced the Rattlers to a hit rate of just .088 with five attack errors. Florida A&M made a comeback late, but the Bulls held them off to take the set, 25-20.

Despite their attack percentage in the first set, the Rattles bounced back in a big way. They outhit the Bulls .364 to .300 in the second set. Manoela Forlin led the Bulls with four kills in the set. The Rattlers tied the match at one after taking the set, 25-20.

Buffalo bounced back in set three as they had to grind it out. There were six ties and two lead changes in the set, the most in the match. After taking a 14-13 lead, the Bulls were able to pull away and stop the Rattlers from coming back to take the set, 25-23 Katrin Trebichavska had a set-high 19 attacks.

The fourth set was all Buffalo as they led the whole way. This was in due to the fact the Rattlers were limited to a .029 attack percentage with just seven kills. UB won the set in dominant fashion, 25-13. Trebichavska and Emma Gielas led the team with five and four kills, respectively in the set.

Trebichavska had a match-high 15 kills on the afternoon with Gielas finishing with 12. Abby Leigh had two service aces for the Bulls.

"I'm really proud of the effort from the team this weekend," stated Head Coach Scott Smith. "We had to really dig deep and get creative to earn three victories over some tough opponents. We displayed strong senior leadership throughout the matches and had some great debut performances from our newcomers. I feel like we have set the stage for a strong season and identified a lot of areas that need improvement."

The Bulls will be back in Alumni Arena starting Thursday, Aug. 31 as they'll host the UB Invite. The team will face DePaul at 6 p.m.