BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Sam Houston volleyball team split a pair of matches on Friday at the Green Wave Invitational at Bartow Arena.
 
The Kats opened the day by outlasting Tulane in five sets before falling in the nightcap, 3-1, to the host UAB Blazers.
 
The tournament was originally scheduled to be played on the Tulane campus in New Orleans, La., but was moved due to the recent effects of Hurricane Ida in the New Orleans area.
 
Sam Houston will close out the tournament on Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. when it squares off with Texas Tech.
 
Match 1
Sam Houston 3, Tulane 2
The Kats hit just .162, but turned in three big defensive sets to take down Tulane in five sets in the weekend opener.
 
The win put to an end a modest 2-match skid for the Kats an was the fourth consecutive win for the Kats over the Green Wave (6-4) since 2012.
 
Catherine Krieger led all players with 16 kills on 37 swings (.216), while McKenzie Morvant had 11 kills and six blocks, hitting .429 for the match on 21 tries.
 
Those six blocks helped SHSU hold Tulane to just .189 hitting for the match, the bulk of that success coming in Sets 1 and 4 that saw the Green Wave hit .314 and .405 while not hitting better than .108 in any of the Bearkat set wins.
 
Morgan Janda finished with 32 assists and 17 digs for her eighth straight double-double, and Ashley Lewis managed to reach double figures of her own with 10 scores and 13 digs.
 
Madeline McKinney added 13 digs of her own, but Hannah Baker led the Kats with 21.
 
Sam Houston held off the Green Wave in Sets 2 and 3 to take a 2-1 lead before Tulane stormed back for a convincing 25-17 win in Set 4 to force a fifth set. But the final stanza was all Kats with Sam Houston racing out to a 6-1 lead and never trailing.
 
Match 2
UAB 3, Sam Houston 1
Three of the four sets in the match were decided by just two points, but UAB had just too much left in the tank on its home floor in the nightcap of the opening day of the tournament.
 
UAB had fallen earlier in the day in just three sets to Texas Tech and got a big match from Fernanda Maida, who led all players with 24 kills.
 
The Kats got 16 kills from Breanne Chausse and another strong match from Krieger, who finished with a dozen scores of her own.
 
But Sam Houston hit just .189 as a team for the match, held in check by 10 UAB blocks. The Blazers, meanwhile, hit no less than .214 in any set and finished at .265 for the match.
 
Janda finished with 38 assists and Hannah Baker had 22 digs. Morvant and De'Janae Gilmore led the team with four blocks each, with Gilmore also reaching double figures with 10 kills.