ACU's season ends in 3-0 loss
11/19/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Wildcats' season ends in 3-0 loss
St. Edward's puts end to historic season
KEARNEY, Neb. -- The ACU Wildcats' historic 2004 volleyball season came to a resounding end Friday with a 3-0 loss to St. Edward's in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division II Southwest Region Tournament on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Kearney.
The Wildcats -- who had beaten St. Edward's twice earlier this season by 3-0 scores -- were beateN 30-28, 30-23, 30-22 by the Lady Hilltoppers, who advance to the regional semifinals for the second straight year. ACU finishes its season at 28-8.
"We did a lot of good things this year, and I'm very proud of this team for that," said ACU head coach Brek Horn, who finished her sixth season as the head coach on Friday.
Despite all of the historic firsts in this season -- the first Lone Star Conference South Division title, the first overall LSC title, the first regional tournament berth in school history and the first season sweep of West Texas A&M in school history -- the Wildcats couldn't overcome one of their most uneven performances of the season.
ACU committed 44 errors in the match (19 attack errors, seven serve-receive errors and four blocking errors among them), but the ones that will be most remembered will be the 12 service errors. Every time it looked as though the Wildcats would be able to get back into a game or the match, the Wildcats would either hit into net or out-of-bounds on the serve.
The Wildcats' serve-receive wasn't good enough to give setter Lindsey Martin a chance to give the ball where ACU's hitters -- Amanda Slate, Michelle Bernhardt, Sophia Kindred, Ashlee Motola and Abbie Lowry -- could make something happen.
Lowry -- a freshman from Flower Mound who was named to the all-tournament team -- was the only Wildcat to get anything going offensively as she finished with a match-high 20 kills to go along with two digs. Bernhardt finished wih 13 kills and 12 digs, while Slate had seven kills on only 20 attacks. Kindred had just four kills and Ashlee Motola three. Senior libero Kellen Morrow, who, along with Kindred, played her final match as a Wildcat on Friday, finished with 11 digs.
The Wildcats trailed throughout much of the first game, falling behind by as much as 19-14 on a Jamie Shackleford kill. But after trailing by 27-23 late in the match, ACU scored 5 of the next points to tie the game at 28-28. Bernhardt then had back-to-back attack errors to end the game in favor of St. Edward's.
The second game was a see-saw affair wth neither team leading more than one point until St. Edward's went on a 10-2 run late in the match to turn a 17-17 tie into a 27-19 lead. The Wildcats had three attack errors and one service error in the run. Erika Figuieredo, who led St. Edward's with 18 kills, finished off the game with a kill, ending it at 30-23.
The third game got away from the Wildcats pretty quickly as they fell behind 7-3 before St. Edward's ripped off a 12-6 run to take an insurmountable 19-9 lead. ACU had six service errors and six attack errors in the third game alone as the Lady Hilltoppers closed out the match with a 30-22 victory.
"We just didn't play very well today," Horn said. "We didn't do a good job with our serve-receive, and we didn't pass the ball well at all. But we finished 28-8 and won the conference title, so I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of or embarrassed about."
