Box Score
STEPHENVILLE, Texas -
Jennie Hutt's 18 kills combined with error-free performances by
Neely Borger and
Rachel Riley helped the Abilene Christian volleyball team defeat Tarleton State, 3-1, Saturday afternoon at Wisdom Gym.
ACU dropped the first set 25-14 before winning the next three: 25-21, 25-20 and 25-22. The victory was the Wildcats' third straight - tying a season high - and lifted their overall and conference records to 13-10 and 7-4, placing them a half-game ahead of the Texanns in the Lone Star Conference standings for third place. The loss for Tarleton State (13-11, 7-5) was its third straight.
ACU finished the match with a .237 hitting percentage despite registering as many kills as errors in the first set. From there the Wildcats hit .303, .278 and .316, while Tarleton hit below .200 in set No. 2 and .100 in set No. 3. ACU won all three sets on attack errors by the Texanns who finished with 28 miscues in addition to seven service errors.
ACU also continued to outblock its opponents for the ninth straight match, winning today's battle at the net, 8.0 – 6.0. Borger, Hutt, Riley and
Sara Oxford all played a role in at least three rejections.
Elsewhere in the box score,
Kelsie Edwards continued to add to her varsity digs record with 15, and
Haley Rhoads set up 38 assists.
After being absent for large portions of the first set, the Wildcats struck back with an impressive 6-0 run early in the second. With Hutt serving, ACU received a pair of kills from Oxford and Riley as well as two attack errors off the hand of Flynn Harrell in grabbing an 8-4 lead. Several exchanges later another error by Harrell gave ACU its biggest lead of the set at 14-8.
Tarleton would get within three points late in the set, but a kill by Hutt brought the score to 24-20 and two plays later ACU tied the match at 1-1 following Audra Vaello's error.
Sets three and four belong to the Wildcats from the start as they jumped out to respective leads of 16-6 and 15-7. Borger recorded three straight kills early in the third set during a 5-0 run, and then in the fourth, three consecutive attacking errors by the Texanns were followed by a flurry of kills from Hutt and Riley.
Borger and Riley combined for 16 kills on 33 attempts with no attacking errors.
The Wildcats return to action Tuesday night at nationally ranked Angelo State.
