UTRGV lands fifth straight conference win in front of large, loud crowd

Isabella Constantini tallied 41 assists in front of the second-largest crowd in UTRGV volleyball program history as the Vaqueros swept McNeese St. 25-13, 25-23, 25-18 on Thursday afternoon during the annual School Day match at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.

There were a reported 2,627 in attendance, second only to UTRGV’s match earlier this season against Texas Tech with 2,771 in attendance.

Constantini, a sophomore from Curitiba, Brazil who transferred from Tyler Junior College, made right choices throughout the day as she spread the wealth mainly to her “big three” hitters Claudia Lupescu, Nadine Zech and Ilana De Assis. The trio combined for 43 of UTRGV’s 48 kills in the match. Lupescu led the way with 17 kills and a .455 hitting percentage. Zech added 15 kills at a whopping .483 percentage and De Assis added 11 kills and a match high 17 digs.

“I thought the girls played really well for the most part,” said head coach Todd Lowery, whose team improved to 11-8 overall and 7-2 in the Southland Conference. “I thought we let down in set two. We have this tendency right now to just relax which is fine if we maintain confidence. But if our confidence is shaken then we have a tendency to do not good things. But we were able to bounce back in the end and pretty much be in control in set three.”

UTRGV is now tied for third with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the 12-team conference. Southeastern is atop the standings at 10-0 and Stephen F. Austin is second at 8-1. UTRGV hosts Nicholls (2-6 in conference, 7-12 overall) at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Vaqueros don’t return home until their final two regular-season matches, Nov. 14 against Incarnate Word and Nov. 16 against Houston Christian.

Lowery gave credit to the enthusiastic and loud crowd for the first set victory. Students screeched from the introductory video and sent out boisterous burst of “oohs,” and “ahhs” as UTRGV blasted kills and put on a defensively acrobatic show, led by libero Celianiz Cabranes.

“The girls came out completely ramped up and fired up for set one,” Lowery said. “I think McNeese was a little bit on their heels in the beginning and I give credit for set one to the crowd.”

UTRGV hit .364 as a team for the match and is second in the conference in hitting percentage, kills, assists and digs. Cabranes has been named the conference defensive player of the week two times. Meanwhile, Constantini has picked up three setter of the week awards. She is on pace to break the UTRGV program record for assists per set in a single season and entered Thursday’s game averaging 11.08 assists per set, just ahead of Katie Burke’s 11.03 assists registered during the 2002 season.