ABILENE - The Abilene Christian volleyball team has lost more than its fair share of matches this season, but perhaps none was as troubling as Tuesday night's 3-0 defeat at Moody Coliseum to an up-and-coming squad from Texas A&M-Commerce.
The Lions improved to 17-7 overall and 8-6 within the Lone Star Conference with the victory, while a third straight defeat for the Wildcats dropped them to 9-15 and 5-9.
The Wildcats trailed 2-0 heading into the third set after watching a late four-point advantage dissolve in game one (25-23) and a rally fall short in game two (25-23), but were on the verge of extending the match to a fourth set after taking leads of 23-20 and 24-22. However, after reaching their first match point on a
Kalynne Allen kill, the Wildcats surrendered three straight points to the Lions - the last two on attack errors.
A few possessions later, ACU would grab the lead once more at 27-26, and then again at 28-27, only to see Commerce respond in kind each time. A kill by
Corrie Reeder provided the Wildcats with their final lead, but Morgan Moeller broke their serve with a kill of her own and another ACU attack error followed. Moeller's second and final kill came out of the next rally and sent the Lions home as victors, 30-28.
Commerce hit only slightly better than the Wildcats tonight, .201 to .165, in recording just three more kills and two fewer errors. Both teams also registered roughly the same amount of blocks and committed an equal number of service errors, each one more upsetting than the next. The two sides also battled through 33 ties - 22 of which came in game three - and exchanged the lead on 16 occasions.
Ultimately, the biggest difference between these two sides tonight was the ability to finish, and more often than not, the Lions found that the best way to win was to get the ball into the hands of Rachel Robertson. The Lions' senior middle blocker led all players with 27 points and 25 kills, six of which were ripped during the final nine possessions of game one. She then added eight more in game two and nine in game three to finish with a .477 hitting percentage (25-4-44).
For the Wildcats, sophomore
Sara Oxford led her club with 11 kills,
Sarah Siemens recorded 35 of 40 assists and had two solo blocks, and libero
Madison Hoover dug out 21 of Commerce's 134 attacks.
As trying as this loss was for the Wildcats, at least they won't have much time to dwell on it as they'll go right back to work tomorrow in preparing for Friday's and Saturday's home matches vs. Texas A&M-Kingsville and Incarnate Word. Match times are 7 p.m. and 2 p.m., respectively, and are the last home games on ACU's 2012 schedule.
