McNeese State Live Stats | Nicholls State Live Stats
ABILENE – Abilene Christian, which received a harsh welcome to Southland Conference volleyball last weekend at Central Arkansas and Oral Roberts, will look to get even against the league this Thursday and Saturday as it welcomes McNeese State and Nicholls State to Moody Coliseum.
Live stats will be available for both matches via StatBroadcast and
Stretch Internet. Thursday's contest vs. the Cowgirls begins at 7 p.m. and the match against the Colonels starts Saturday at 2 p.m. ACU has not played either team in its 43-year history prior to this weekend.
The Wildcats come into this week at 4-6 overall and 0-2 vs. the Southland Conference after suffering consecutive 3-0 losses to two of the league's preeminent programs. The Sugar Bears topped the Wildcats by scores of 25-25, 25-19 and 25-18, while the seven-time Southland champion Golden Eagles won 25-21, 25-16 and 25-20.
The proverbial silver lining, however, to the Wildcats' winless weekend is that they saw right away the very best the league has to offer and they have lots of company at 0-2 with seven weeks still left to play. Nicholls also went 0-2 last weekend along with Incarnate Word, Southeastern Louisiana and New Orleans. McNeese, meanwhile, went 1-2 as the Cowgirls bookended a 3-1 win vs. Lamar with 3-0 losses to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Sam Houston State.
ACU continues to lead the league in blocking at 2.14 per set and is among the top-three teams in opponent hitting percentage at .175 despite allowing the Sugar Bears and Golden Eagles to hit a combined .316 with 17 service aces. The Wildcats, however, registered more blocks than their opposition with 10.0 and nearly recorded the same amount of digs per set, 14.67 to 11.50.
Sophomore outside hitter Jennie Loerch paced the Wildcats' offense with 22 kills and a per set attack average of 3.67 to keep her among the league leaders (7th) with 3.24 per set. Other Wildcats ranked among the league's top-10 leaders are freshman
Lexi Mercier, whose five blocks increased her conference best total to 52 (1.44 per set), and sophomore
Madison Hoover, who ranks sixth with 4.06 digs per set. Sophomore setter
Sarah Siemens is 10th in the league with 7.75 assists per set after recording 39 this past weekend.
McNeese State (7-8, 1-2 Southland) has lost six of its past eight and will first play at Prairie View A&M Monday night before coming to the Key City. The Cowgirls are ranked in the bottom half of many team statistical categories, but they appear to thrive at the net as they're ranked fourth of 14 teams in hitting percentage (.235) and third in blocks with 1.95 per game.
Cowgirls Amber Fryer and Carly DeMarque are among the league's top blockers with 0.83 and 0.73 per set, respectively, while their top offensive threat is Malina Sanchez, who is hitting .268 with 3.91 kills per set. Sanchez ranks second in the conference in kills to Deveney Wells-Gibson of Sam Houston State (3.95).
Nicholls (3-9, 0-2 Southland Conference) is in the midst of a three-match losing streak and will travel to Incarnate Word on Thursday night before coming up to play the Wildcats. The Colonels rank no higher than 11th in any of the league's statistical categories with the exception of service aces, in which they rank fifth with 1.52 per set led by Kayla Burling (0.41) and Kayla Mashburn (0.34).
The two Kaylas also are ranked among the league leaders in kills with 3.27 and 2.73 per set, while Kalynn Egea is No. 11 in digs (3.60).
