UCF Outside Hitter Avah Armour and Libero Alexa Haley Talk Knights' First Big 12 Wins of 2026

All right ladies, congratulations on getting your first win in the venue in a while. Just how good does it feel to finish one up here with a dub? It feels great. I know I think we've done a really good job as a team coming together after each game win or a loss and keeping camaraderie high. Knowing that each game is a new opportunity, I think we really took advantage of that today. Yeah, obviously we started off kind of rocky and I think just the resilience of this team is so great and that's such an important thing. I'm just very proud of us. Alex, you've got 11 aces today, which was a pretty high point for the serving this week. What have you guys been working on to get the aces up in games? Yeah, I think we knew going into this match that West Virginia is never going to back down. They're a good team. They bring a lot of energy every time. And so we knew a big part of this was going to be getting them off the net. They have a lot of weapons when they're in system. And so, you know, that serving can be a strength. And sometimes we take that a little too seriously. We're a little bit too high air. I think today we're really focused on location and pace and getting those balls in, putting it on those passers and try to pull that setter off the net. I think we did a good job controlling errors today, so I think that was a huge part of our win. Yeah, I think that's something that starts in practice. Serving is obviously a skill in volleyball that you can solely control and just tuning in on little things in practice and focusing in on that so we can be aggressive. We talk about that a lot, being aggressive. um you don't want our opponents passing the perfect ball every time um it's just keeping keep being aggressive while managing that yeah and those high pressure situations too would really up the pressure in practice yeah we're done some pressure serving so that when we are back there and under a little bit of pressure it's a close game as a set um we know we can go back and recall Alexa four aces with just one error what was working for you in the service line tonight yeah again i think it all comes back to practice um that's where we get better um like Ava said we've been really working on that in practice um in pressure situations and just tuning in to the little things I'm serving because I think when you're serving back there it does come down to that um to just be aggressive trusting my training. How's it been for both y'all adjusting to having Mikayla in the full-time setting spot? It's been really good you know Mikayla is a really tough player she's a competitor and she's out there and she's really fiery which is awesome to have for a setter she's confident she knows what she's capable of and she's out there ready to lead the team so I think she's done an excellent job coming in you know obviously like we had to work out some kinks in the beginning with some timing some tempo and just figuring out a completely different setter but she's done an amazing job and been very receptive to feedback and like wanting feedback and she wants to be great and so yeah I think it's been great it's been a smoother transition than some might think and so I think it's only going to get better from here. Obviously, we hope Abby gets better and just continues to keep rehabbing and getting better, but yeah, Mikayla's done an excellent job coming in. Yeah, Mikayla's so amazing. I can't give her enough compliments on how she's running the offense. That's a huge role to step into, and she's done it and done such a great job, and even more than just a volleyball player, her as a competitor is she brings fire to the team, and yeah, I'm very proud of her. I think we all are, and just what a great job she's been doing. Does this feel familiar to when you stepped in for Sophia last season? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's also something I can kind of understand, so I can relate to her with that. So, yeah, just being there for her, hyping her up. And like Ava said too, she's already very confident. It's not that she even needs that, but obviously as her teammates, we're always there for her and just how amazing she is. Last match, you got taken to the fifth set, managed to finish it out this time around you know second lose the second set but you bounce back in the third with 45 in percentage in that one set alone what has felt different with these last two matches just from a mental standpoint just how big is it to pull out some wins there i think up select your ear and the time out after the third set she was like this is our fifth set like we got to go out there like this is our last chance to win this game so i think that honestly really shifted everyone's mindset not fourth like we don't have a backup plan right now and of course there obviously was a fifth set um but going out there with the mentality that it's like do or die situation right now and we do not want to get in a position where we're going to a fifth set obviously it's never ideal um so going out there with that confidence and with that assertiveness going out and just being like this like is it and we got to give everything we can to win this set right now so yeah it's definitely come down um in previous games to little points um and we've been losing by a close margin, so I think in endgame today and during Houston, we kind of just gave it everything that we had, and we stayed aggressive, and we competed like winners, so. Yeah, also doing a really good job, I think, from previous matches compared to the last two, coming back from errors and just limiting their runs a little bit. I think we struggled a lot in the beginning of the season of letting errors accumulate and letting that kind of shift the energy, so we've been really focused on that these last two matches and just we're going to make errors we're going to have little mistakes even today it wasn't our cleanest volleyball we had like things that shouldn't have happened balls that shouldn't have dropped but we were able to come back the next point and say scratch it next ball here we start from here and go rather than letting those kind of keep going got a long road trip coming up how does it feel to just kind of come back to Orlando get a win give a reset before you go back on the road it's awesome i mean i'm so grateful to go to school here like I think we say all the time, like, coming back from a travel trip and getting to come back to Orlando and sunshine and palm trees, it's honestly just such a relaxing feeling, and we all love it here. And so, yeah, I think we're excited to go on the road again and try to keep up this momentum going into the next week. Yeah, I agree. Where UCF is located, very grateful. How do you keep the momentum from this match going? Because now that you've flipped the script after a long losing streak, now you have multiple consecutive wins on your belt. how you keep that momentum going i think volleyball is a lot about confidence and it's such a huge mental game like we know that we um have the training we have the coaches we have all of the player like we have all of the keys we need volleyball wise and skill wise to put up numbers against teams and beat really good teams um this comes down to the mental piece of i think the last two games have really started started to build our confidence back up um all of us we're just we're buying in and um just trying to we've started fresh this this past weekend i think that's really helped us just we're two and out right now we just got to keep going from here um and give every single game our best shot um and just keep going and never giving up i think this team is like Lexi said super resilient um yeah just putting trust in each other um comes down to practice that's when we get better making sure we're giving our all and putting our best in practice um because that's what translates out there on the floor yeah i'm just very grateful for the girls that we have thanks guys thank you