Forty-four straight matches and counting.
The UB women's volleyball team, high with the confidence of a promising non-conference campaign, suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Marshall Thundering Herd Saturday. Buffalo fell in four games, 3-1 at Alumni Arena, losing their 44th-straight conference match dating back to October of 1999.
The Bulls are now 0-2 in the MAC this season, losing at Akron on Thursday. It was the conference opener for Marshall; thus they are now 1-0.
The match's final game was a showcase of Thundering Herd dominance. Marshall hit for an excellent .550 attack percentage, making no errors. Buffalo on the other hand made more errors than kills for a -.029 attack percentage. Marshall won the game 30-17.
The Thundering Herd sat on game point in game three while Buffalo mounted a four point rally. An attacking error by Alexis Bouie, however, gave Marshall a 30-24 decision.
Game two was the only one in which Buffalo out-hit the Herd, and it translated into UB's only win of the afternoon. The Bulls took their first lead of the game late when sophomore Kathyrn Henry buried a kill to put them up 30-29. Bouie closed out the game on the next point with a solo block on Heidi Kuethe for a 31-29 win.
"We came out strong but we let them come back and that's when we should have pushed stronger the whole way to finish the game," sophomore outside hitter Molly Schrantz said.
Buffalo won the first four points of game one, forcing a Marshall timeout. Marshall responded to another timeout with a 10-2 run, pulling them within one at 15-14. The Herd dominated the rest of the way, winning a game that UB once led 10-2 by the score of 30-25.
"We need to become more consistent with our play," UB Head Coach Sally Kus said. "When we are playing good we play very well. When we are not playing good, we are like dominos, we fall over."
Kus made note of UB's many close loses in MAC play, hampering on the fact that her team needs to play well through the entire game, not in spurts, in order to end their long losing streak.
"At times we run with every team," Kus said. "We started strong verses Akron and Marshall and folded."
For the game Marshall doubled up the Bulls in blocks 18-9. They also attacked at a .255 clip to Buffalo's .118.
Key contributions for Marshall were Tracy King with 11 kills and 10 digs, and Kuethe with 10 kills and 12 digs. The Herd's Isabell Anderer and Nicole Michal had 14 kills each respectively.
Stars for Buffalo were Lindsey Matikosh with 16 kills and 17 digs, and Schrantz with 10 kills and eight digs. Honorable mention went to Bouie with 10 kills and Henry with 17 defensive digs.
