ABILENE – The Abilene Christian volleyball team will look to quickly rebound from Tuesday night's 3-2 loss at No. 17 San Angelo with the start of a three-match homestand that begins Thursday vs. Texas A&M-Commerce. ACU is 4-1 at home this season.
The match begins at 7 p.m. and will be followed later in the weekend by a Saturday 2 p.m. contest vs. Texas Woman's and Tuesday night's Dig Pink showdown with Tarleton State. For this year's Dig Pink night at Moody Coliseum, donations will be accepted on behalf of the Make-A-Wish foundation and ACU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committees will be selling pink game-day t-shirts for $10.
ACU beat the Lions and TexAnns by matching 3-1 scores earlier in the year, but lost 3-2 to the Pioneers – a match it once led 2-0.
Last night's loss in San Angelo was likely no more or less devastating than any previous defeat this season, but at least ACU proved once again that it can compete against the nation's best. Twice the Wildcats came back to tie the match at 1-1 and 2-2, but in the decisive fifth set, they couldn't muster the final two points as the Rambelles scored the final four en route to a 15-13 victory.
A block by
Neely Borger brought the Wildcats to within two points of closing out the match, but a pair of kills and a block by Chelsea Gibson, along with an ACU shot that went wide, helped the Belles pull off their comeback.
ASU looked like it would beat the Wildcats in four sets after a dominating 25-12 performance in the third set, however, ACU fought back from a 23-20 fourth-set deficit by winning six of the final seven points to force a fifth set.
Jennie Hutt had two kills during this stretch and finished the match with 15.
After Angelo State won the first set, the Wildcats stayed alive behind a 25-22 win in the second stanza, which experienced eight ties and five lead changes. Madelyn Robinette delivered an ace that put ACU on top 23-20, and then after the Belles closed within one point at 23-22, the Wildcats benefitted from consecutive service and attacking errors.
Sara Oxford led the Wildcats' attack with 16 kills and a .270 hitting percentage on a night when ACU collectively hit .130 as a team. Borger also contributed 13 kills and six block assists (one solo) in scoring a team-best 19.0 points.
Kelsie Edwards and
Michie Johnson combined to dig out 55 of 81 balls, while
Haley Rhoads set up 51 assists.
ACU's streak of outblocking its opponents was snapped at nine matches as ASU rejected 9.0 attacks to the Wildcats' 7.0.
The win kept the Rambelles (23-2, 12-1 LSC) a half-game behind West Texas A&M for first place in the conference standings, while the Wildcats (13-11, 7-5 LSC) fell into a tie for fourth place with Tarleton State.
Information from GoSanAngelo.com was used in this release
