First Miss

As I mentioned in the last post about the UT Arlington volleyball team, it had been almost one year since the last regular season loss for the Mavericks. While I have pointed out a few times this year's schedule was not chock full of world beaters, but you play who you play. 

This past weekend was the first home sighting for the Mavericks as they partook in the UNT-UTA Invitational. In years past, it's just been the UTA Invitational (as well as the UTA Classic) so I'm not sure what occurred to cause UTA to join forces with North Texas.

Friday opened with another familiar foe as, like in past weeks, a former Southland Conference rival squared off against the Mavericks. Northwestern State is not a good volleyball school and into this match in Denton at 1-8. It was another match that made me think the Mavericks are just not quite there as five sets were needed to pull out the win. The Demons have had one winning record in the prior five years and it doesn't look like that will change in 2025.

For a program that has never won a conference championship (they did finish second once in 2013), the fight was much tougher than anticipated. For the sixth time in seven opening sets, UTA won the first 25-15. However, for the first time in 2025, they dropped the second set, 19-25. The Mavs started slow in that set, getting behind 1-5, 2-7 and 3-9. They looked really out of the thing at 9-20, but made a good comeback for the final set score. The Mavs staved off set point six times before the Demons got in on the seventh try.

UTA won the third 25-17. It was only the third win in set three all year, only winning twice in six prior matches. More on that stat in just a moment. In the fourth set, UTA and NSU were tied at 10 all when the Demons went on a 5-1 run for a lead. Northwestern State continued the momentum to get a head 14-20. UTA closed the gap but fell by four.

That forced a fifth set. UTA was 3-0 in fifth sets prior to this match and that luck held with a 15-13 win. The Mavs were up 14-9 at one point before giving up four straight to make it close, but they played well enough for the win. And that's the point I want to make. 

I went into greater detail in this match to show what I think is a very important point. Last year's team knew the dagger could be impaled and went for the jugular often. This team plays well overall but lapses in play where a team like NSU can take them to five sets. That's concerning. 

I don't normally highlight a team's historical struggle like I did for NSU's best season in 2013. That said, when a bad program historically is having a bad season, and a good program historically is hoping to contend for a conference title, five sets probably shouldn't happen. Especially when that historically bad program is in one of the worst conferences. The Southland was ninth worst last year out of 31. The Western Athletic Conference was six spots better than that. And that was with the SLC having a better than normal year.

Like I mentioned earlier, UTA has not performed well in the third set. UTA has one sweep all year. NSU should have been a sweep. Quinnipiac could have been a sweep. Western Illinois too. At the time, I thought Louisiana-Monroe should have been too. They are 8-4 but have padded their win totals with Southwestern Athletic Conference teams, four to be exact. I'll leave it in the could sweep category.

Last year, eight of the 12 non-conference matches ended a sweep. That led to nine sweeps in conference play in sixteen chances and another to open the WAC tournament. If this trend holds, conference play will be tough.

Saturday was the College Park Center home opener. Former conference rival (and rumored United Athletic Conference target) Little Rock made a return to Arlington. The now-Ohio Valley Conference Trojans won the first set 26-24, but UTA took the next three. After a shaky start to the weekend, the last three sets were the most consistent I've seen the Mavericks this year. Little Rock scored 19, 16 and 22. They are 3-6 on the year but have played one of the tougher schedules for a UTA opponent to this point in the season.

That set up the toughest match of the year on Sunday, also a home game. North Texas made the trip down from Denton and their 6-2 record came with them.

Similar to the season, there was a variance in the scores. UTA won the first set by the minimum 25-23, lost set two by seven, won the third by the same score as the first, set four 25-27 and ultimately lost set five 7-15.

UTA had a chance in the fourth set. Trailing 17-22, the Mavs went on a 7-1 run to take a 24-23 lead. UNT got a timely block on outside hitter Sophie Ocampo, a redshirt junior, to notch the score even at 24. That tempered the Mav rally and UNT would score four of the last five points for the win. 

The Mavs never had a lead in set five and UNT would score the last five points to put the match away and hand UTA their first loss. 

The good news is, UNT is likely the hardest opponent UTA will face all year. Bad news is, this week's opponent and potentially two WAC schools, Utah Valley and Utah Tech, will be on par with that. A five-set home loss means UTA will be far more challenged than last year. There's a real possibility that UTA won't defend their WAC regular season championship. Conversely, they have shown that if they don't, they will go down swinging.

Up next is the UTSA classic. UTSA was picked a few spots ahead of UNT in the American Athletic Conference preseason poll, ninth to UNT's 11th, in the 13-team league. The Mavs and the former conference opponent (I've said that a lot this year) Roadrunners square off on Friday. Later that day, UTA faces off against Prairie View A&M. On Saturday, UTA closes out the non-conference portion of the schedule with a match against the Atlantic Sun's North Florida Ospreys. Starting next year, the two teams will likely see each other more often thanks to the relationship between the ASun and the UAC. But I'm sure no member of the UTA volleyball team is worried about that, but looking to begin WAC play on a high.