ABILENE – Sophomore Corrine Grandcolas set a team-season high with 8.0 block assists in her home debut and the Wildcats recorded their second-best attacking percentage of the fall at .232 in defeating New Orleans, 3-1, Thursday night at Moody Coliseum.
All four games were incredibly close. ACU won the first two sets by matching 25-21 scores, dropped game three, 23-25, and then held on to a 25-23 triumph in game four after reaching match point with the score at 24-20.
The win was the Wildcats' fourth straight at home; where they are now 5-1 overall with two matches left on the schedule starting with Saturday's 1 p.m. match vs. Southeastern Louisiana followed by Monday's Senior Night clash vs. Nicholls. The victory also lifted their overall record to 5-17 and pushed them back a game over .500 in the Southland standings at 5-4.
UNO, meanwhile, fell to 12-12 and 2-6.
ACU appeared destined to sweep the Privateers after limiting them to a .026 attacking percentage in game two, but New Orleans found a way to bounce back in game three and used a 6-0 run to build its largest lead of the night at 16-10.
While the lead wasn't insurmountable, it took the Wildcats 13 possessions to get back within a point at 20-19 thanks to a block from Grandcolas and
Lauren Walker. But from there the two sides kept exchanging points in see-saw fashion and ACU eventually lost the set on a sneak attack by setter Celeste Ramirez.
The start of game four felt like a continuation of game three with neither team able to pull ahead by more than three points until the very end when
Kendall Bosse delivered consecutive kills to give ACU a 22-19 lead. An attack error by Cara Sander made it 23-19 and a service error – one of 11 for UNO – brought the Wildcats to match point at 24-20.
ACU failed three times to win the match as a rash of attack errors made it 24-23, but on the final rally point libero
Madison Hoover fed a loose ball to setter
Sarah Siemens, who slammed it over the net to finish with 9.5 points on seven kills, a block assist and two aces.
Siemens also recorded the ninth 50-assist match of her career and Hoover was credited with 21 digs.
Offensively,
Jennifer Loerch led the Wildcats with 15 kills (.308). Walker was second with 12 kills and a .500 hitting percentage and
Jacey Smith chipped in 10 kills (.259). Bosse didn't appear until the fourth set and came through with four kills on seven attempts (.429).
Grandcolas missed the better part of a month with an injury suffered during the second tournament of the season but came back last week to play in four sets at Houston Baptist and Corpus Christi and then started tonight for the first time since Sept. 5. Her 8.0 blocks were a personal best as her previous high of 5.0 was set last October at Nicholls.
Blessing Dunn led UNO with 12 kills and hit .310 thanks to only three errors on 29 attempts.
