Box Score
ABILENE –The Abilene Christian volleyball team completed its regular season in grand fashion with a dominating 3-0 sweep of Cameron Saturday at Moody Coliseum.
Led by freshman Sarah Oxford's career high .550 (14-3-20) hitting percentage and senior
Jennie Hutt's 17 kills, the Wildcats hit a season best .325 in beating the Aggies by scores of 25-20, 25-16 and 27-25.
Winners of ten of its last 12 matches, ACU (20-12) will enter this weekend's Lone Star Conference Championship as the No. 3 seed with a conference record of 14-6. Cameron, which finished sixth in the conference at 9-11 (15-14 overall) will serve as ACU's first-round opponent.
The eight-team, three-day tournament runs Thursday to Saturday and is being hosted by top-seeded West Texas A&M. The Lady Buffs entered today winners of their last 13 and clinched first place after ACU beat Angelo State, 3-2, last Tuesday.
Much like Thursday's Senior Night, today's match also was wrapped in emotions. In addition to being the last home match for veterans Hutt,
Kelsie Edwards and
Aubree Vick, all 14 Wildcats stood alongside their parents during pregame introductions and bowed their heads during a moment of silence in remembrance of Friday's bus crash that claimed the life of ACU sophomore Anabel Reid.
The Wildcats also wore black hair ribbons and armbands marked with the date 11/4/11, and came out playing inspired in running out to a 6-0 lead. A late kill from
Rachel Riley provided ACU with its biggest lead of the set at 23-14, but then Cameron made things a bit interesting after scoring six of the next seven points in closing the gap to 24-20.
The Aggie rally forced the Wildcats into calling a time out, but on the very next possession
Kalynne Allen delivered the game-winning kill off an assist by Haley Rhoades.
Rhoades served up 43 of the team's 48 assists on a day in which her teammates delivered an average of 17.0 kills per set.
Cameron again came back from an early six-point deficit in game two, and at one point had closed within one point at 15-14 before ACU responded with a decisive 7-0 run. Sophomore
Neely Borger was key during this stretch for the Wildcats, contributing two of her team high five blocks and one of her 10 kills.
Borger hit .409 for the match as she made just one attacking error in 22 chances. Hutt also hit .400 and added 15 digs plus a service ace. Edwards, meanwhile, registered 21 of ACU's 58 digs in helping to hold Cameron to a .163 hitting percentage.
The Aggies fought hard throughout the third game, and nearly brought it to a fourth until ACU finally tied it at 24-24 on a Kelle Carver attacking error – her sixth of the match. From there Hutt exchanged kills with CU's Adrienne Lawson to keep the game deadlocked at 25-25, but then Filly Ezenwa hit one wide, and then on the next rally Carver's 29th attempt was blocked back by Hutt and Borger.
Carver led the Aggies with 12 kills and Lawson was second with 11. Lawson also led her team with two aces in finishing the match with 13.5 points.
