ABILENE – Abilene Christian volleyball had its five-match home winning streak broken by Nicholls, 3-1, Monday night at Moody Coliseum. The Colonels won by scores of 22-25, 25-17, 28-26 and 26-24 for their first Southland Conference victory of the season.
The Nicholls' defense limited the Wildcats to .120 hitting, digging out 81 of 191 ACU attacks in addition to registering 14.0 blocks. The Colonels additionally had three players record 10-or-more kills: Anna Niederhauser (17), Kaci Eaton (15) and Kali Schwartz (11). Schwartz led her team with a .267 hitting percentage, while Niederhauser added 5.0 blocks to finish with a team-high 20.5 points.
Jennifer Loerch recorded a career high 24 kills and hit .204 in the final home match of her career to lead ACU (6-18, 6-5 Southland) on offense. Unfortunately, there wasn't much support as three of her teammates hit well below .100. The Wildcats' traditionally strong block also disappeared for large stretches tonight in finishing with only five rejections.
Nicholls led early in game one and was up by as many as five with the score at 16-11 when a series of Colonel errors brought the Wildcats to within a point at 16-15. The Colonels continued to lead over the next six possessions but lost it during a 4-0 ACU run in which the Wildcats followed consecutive Nicholls' errors with a
Lillian Drever service ace and a kill from Loerch.
Loerch went on to deliver three additional kills down the stretch and finished game one 6-of-15 with only two errors (.267).
ACU completed game one with a .225 attacking percentage but would never come close to matching that the rest of the night. Nicholls held the Wildcats to .058 hitting in game two and took off on a 11-1 run to tie the match at 1-1 entering intermission, and then in game three ACU let a 15-10 lead slip away as it was hampered along the way by 11 attack errors.
Nicholls knotted the third game at 19-19 on a kill from Schwartz to turn the game into a tug-of-war as the two sides battled through seven additional tie scores. ACU took its last lead at 25-24 on one of nine Colonel service errors before surrendering consecutive kills by Alyse Barclay and Eaton.
Freshman
Kendall Bosse tied the score a final time at 26-26 with one of her eight kills, but Eaton brought the serve back to Nicholls with her seventh kill of the game and the Colonels went up 2-1 on an attack error by
Jacey Smith.
ACU came very close to pushing its Senior Night match to a fifth set, using a 6-1 run to trim a seven-point deficit into a tie score at 24-24. But right after Emily Weimer made her lone error of the night (8-of-20, .351), the Wildcats gave the lead right back to Nicholls, 25-24, on a service error. The Colonels then won it on a block from Barclay and Sydney Lerille off Loerch's 63rd and final swing.
Loerch's senior classmates
Sarah Siemens and
Madison Hoover finished the match with 49 assists and 29 digs, respectively.
The Wildcats return to action Halloween Saturday afternoon for a 2 p.m. match at Incarnate Word that kicks off a season-ending five-match road trip. ACU defeated UIW, 3-1, at home earlier this month.
