ABILENE - The Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelinas moved a game ahead of the Wildcats in the Lone Star Conference standings Friday night at Moody Coliseum following their second 3-0 sweep of ACU this season.
Kingsville won by scores of 25-21, 25-19 and 31-29, improving its overall and conference records to 13-11 and 6-9. The Wildcats, meanwhile, have lost four-straight matches since their 3-0 win vs. No. 8 West Texas A&M, and are now 9-16 and 5-10 entering Saturday's 2 p.m. home finale vs. Incarnate Word.
ACU finished tonight's match with more kills than Kingsville, 43-42, but also recorded nearly twice as many errors, 30-17, giving the Wildcats a sub-par .088 attack percentage. The Javelinas hit close to a 100 points better at .185 and were led most of the night by Kelsey Washington, who ripped 17 kills on 36 attempts with three errors (.389).
Kingsville also received some timely attacks from Kelsee Felux (9-2-25) and setter Sarah Fountain (4-0-7), who also tossed up 30 of her team's 36 assists.
On the block, Felux, Dedra Brown and Stephanie Johns all recorded two solo efforts as the Javelinas out-blocked ACU, 7-5. Wildcat freshman
Corrie Reeder led her side with three blocks, all of them solo.
Offensively, ACU received 13 kills from rookie Jennie Loerch, 10 from
Kalynne Allen and nine from
Rachel Riley; however, this same trio also combined for 20 errors.
ACU setter
Sarah Siemens had 37 assists and libero
Madison Hoover dug out the most attacks with 25.
The Wildcats struggled tonight to develop any kind of offensive consistency in sets one (.048) and (.062) two, before hitting considerably better (.138) in game three. But despite that slight improvement, the Wildcats could not figure how to put away the Javelinas, who faced match point and the threat of a fourth game on five occasions.
ACU's first chance to close was at 25-24, but an attack error by Loerch knotted the game for the 14th time at 25-25. The two sides continued to exchange points from there until the Javelinas managed to win two straight and take a 29-28 lead.
The Wildcats regained service on the next point as Reeder provided a game-tying block, but on the next two possessions, the Javelinas first benefited from an attack error that was then followed by the match-clinching point from Brown.
