Wildcats fall in LSC semifinal

Friday, November 11

Canyon, Texas

5 p.m.

Abilene Christian

Angelo State

Photo by: Sarah Glenn

11/11/2011 7:31:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

CANYON – If the ACU Wildcats are going to continue playing this season, they'll have to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Division II South Central Region tournament after their regular season came to an end Friday night with a 3-1 loss to Angelo State in the Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament semifinals.

The Wildcats won the first set against the league's No. 2 seed, 32-30, but dropped the next three sets, 25-18, 25-21, 25-17, as the Rambelles punched their ticket for their second straight conference tournament championship match.

The Wildcats are now 21-13 on the season and will have to wait until Monday afternoon's announcement of the national tournament field to find out if their season will continue. ACU entered the weekend ranked No. 8 in the regional rankings and the top eight teams in the final poll of the season will advance to the regional tournament.

ACU has reached the regional tournament in four of the last seven seasons (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2010) and advanced to the tournament semifinals last season before a loss to Washburn ended their season.

If the Wildcats do advance to the regional tournament as the No. 8 seed, they will likely see top-ranked Washburn in the first round of the tournament.

The Wildcats had some early success in Friday's match, but Angelo's block proved to be too much for ACU to handle in the final three sets. ACU hit .298 in the first set (22 kills against just five errors), but had just 32 kills against 23 errors over the final three sets.

ACU ended up hitting .149 thanks in part to an Angelo State defense that came up with 13 blocks, led by seven from all-conference middle blocker Chelsea Gibson.

The Wildcats had nine blocks of their own, led by Neely Borger's six, but it wasn't enough to keep the Rams from hitting .257 in the match (67 kills against just 23 errors).

ACU was led by senior Jennie Hutt, who finished with 18 kills (.250 hitting percentage), 16 digs and four blocks. Rachel Riley had 12 kills (.321 hitting percentage) and three blocks, while LSC Freshman of the Year Sara Oxford finished with nine kills and two blocks. Haley Rhoads had 49 assists and 11 digs, while Kelsie Edwards had a match-high 28 digs.