SAN ANTONIO, Texas - For the second time in as many Southland Conference matches, the Wildcats Sunday pushed their opponent to a fifth set only to fall a little short at the end.
Thursday, the Wildcats lost 3-2 at home to the defending champions from Central Arkansas, and today it was against their familiar rivals from Incarnate Word at the McDermott Center.
The Cardinals won the match by scores of 20-25, 26-24, 26-24, 14-25, 15-8 in improving to 5-10 overall and 1-1 vs. the Southland Conference, while the Wildcats - who were without the services of one of their leading scorers,
Stephanie Schoelman - fell to 2-13 and 0-2.
ACU outhit the Cardinals by more than 40 percentage points, .201 to .157, and had 19 kills from junior outside hitter
Jennifer Loerch, but simply couldn't find a way to hold on late in games two and three. And then after hitting a brilliant .524 with 13 kills and two errors in game four to tie the match at 2-2, ACU registered only three kills and one block during a frustrating fifth set.
The Wildcats tied the Cardinals at 2-2 early in the fifth set but soon trailed by as many as five after UIW took off on a 6-1 run. And from there, ACU couldn't get closer to the home team by any less than three points as late kills by Bryaynea Hall, Hope Kelley and Brittani Dear sealed the victory for UIW.
ACU started the match with a fairly convincing 25-20 win, which it led a majority of the way by three or more points. The Wildcats then led during the early stages of the second set until the Cardinals responded with a 6-0 run that tied the score for the first of 11 times at 11-11. The game remained deadlocked all the way through 22-22 when a kill by
Sarah Siemens and an attack error by Alexa Lezak brought the Wildcats to match point at 24-22.
Unfortunately, UIW ended the second set on a 4-0 run that included two kills by Hall, one from Angelique Vidaurri, and service ace by Taylor McClelland.
In game three, it appeared as if the Wildcats would return the favor as spoilers by scoring four consecutive points to move ahead of the Cardinals at 24-23. This mini-run started with a kill from
Rachel Riley, and then UIW made back-to-back errors before
Dorothy Swanson scored the 24th point on one of her nine kills.
On the next play, however, Dear tied the score a 10th time off an assist from Kaitlyn Brooks. Vidaurri followed with a block and Dear gave her team a 2-1 advantage with one of UIW's eight service aces.
By comparison, ACU had five aces and was outblocked by the Cardinals, 8-5.
Dear led all Cardinals today with 18.5 points, while Vidaurri was right behind with 18.0. Loerch had 20.5 points on 19 kills, a block assist, and 11 digs.
The Wildcats return to action this Thursday and Saturday with matches at Northwestern State and Stephen F. Austin.
