ABILENE - The Southland Conference regular season champions from Stephen F. Austin inched another match closer to perfection within the league following a hard-fought 3-0 victory over Abilene Christian Thursday night at Moody Coliseum by scores of 25-15, 25-23 and 25-21.
The Ladyjacks improved to 22-7 overall and 15-0 vs. the Southland with tonight's victory and will complete their regular season Saturday at 2 p.m. at Incarnate Word (10-18, 6-8 SLC). The Wildcats, meanwhile, fell to 6-23 overall and 4-11 following their second loss this season to SFA.
ACU hit .222 for the match led by junior
Jennifer Loerch's 15 kills and .286 hitting percentage. The Wildcats also received six kills apiece from sophomore
Lexi Mercier (.333) and
Taylor Nix (.429), but ultimately couldn't find enough holes in a Ladyjacks' defense that produced 50 digs (on 108 attempts) and six blocks.
Setter Paige Holland and libero OJ Olson combined for 34 of their team's digs, while Jill Ivy was part of five blocks to go along with her team high 13 kills (.385). Jacque Allen had a big night offensively as well, finishing with a .625 hitting percentage (12-of-16 with two errors) and two block assists.
SFA outhit the Wildcats by over 200 points in running away with game one, but in game two, the Wildcats flipped an early five-point deficit into a two-point lead thanks to a 7-0 run with points coming from Nix,
Dorothy Swanson and setter
Sarah Siemens, who finished the match with three kills in addition to 16 assists.
The Wildcats held their lead for several more possessions until the Ladyjacks produced a 4-0 run that featured three consecutive kills from Abby McIntyre and put them back ahead by one point at 15-14. From there, the score would be tied three more times and ACU grabbed their final lead at 19-18 on back-to-back kills from seniors Nix and
Neely Borger.
SFA responded in kind with consecutive points from Holland and Ivy and prevented any additional Wildcat rallies from happening as kills from Nix were immediately negated by points from McIntyre and Allen.
Allen recorded two kills on each side of an ACU timeout to put her team ahead at 24-22. Loerch then cut the Wildcats' deficit to one on her seventh kill of the set, but on the final rally Allen and Ivy blocked Loerch's 13th attempt to give the Ladyjacks a 2-0 lead.
SFA jumped ahead of the Wildcats again in game three and enjoyed a six-point cushion at one point (19-13) following a kill from Ivy. That forced the Wildcats to take a timeout and they came out of it on a 3-0 run with points from Loerch and libero
Brooke Ray, who got her over pass to fall in bounds.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they would not get closer than three points the rest of the way as SFA would again push its advantage out to six points before ACU scored four of the match's last six points.
The Wildcats return to action and close out their 2014 campaign Saturday at 2 p.m. vs. Northwestern State. Seniors
Neely Borger,
Rachel Riley and
Taylor Nix will be honored during a pregame ceremony that will take place prior to the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner.
This year's class of seniors helped the program reach the postseason three times during the past five seasons (dating back to 2010) and readied it for the challenging transition between NCAA Division II and I Athletics.
