Senior Gabriella Matautia has been named the Under Armour OwlSports.com Athlete of the Week for the week of Sept. 16. Matautia was also named to the American Athletic Conference Weekly Honor Roll.

After three solid matches this past weekend, Matautia was named to the Temple Invitational All-Tournament Team. She recorded her 1,000th career kill last week against Penn and has now totaled 1,051 career kills.

“Being able to get 1,000 kills in my four years is awesome, I am really glad I was able to break 1,000 kills,” Matautia said. “Yes, all the kills is nice, but I think the most important thing is that we are coming together as a team. The group that we have been playing with has been working, it helps that we have such a big block. Sandra [Sydlik] has been doing really well, and if we continue to work and get better it’s going to be great.”

Matautia, who has been the offensive leader in Temple’s 9-3 start to the season, recorded ten or more kills in all three matches for the week as Temple went 2-1 at its own tournament. Mautatia is averaging 3.90 kills per set which is tops in the American Athletic conference.

As conference games kickoff this weekend against Cincinnati (0-13) on Friday and Louisville (6-4) on Saturday, Mautatia knows her and the teams play needs to get even better.

“We are up and down too much, we need to stay at one level, as well as reducing errors and executing what we need to get done,” Matautia said. “We are excited for the challenge of conference play to see where our team is at.”