SAN ANTONIO – ACU's senior trio of Jennie Loerch,
Madison Hoover and
Sarah Siemens rallied their team from a disappointing home loss Thursday to the team's first road win of the season Saturday with a 3-1 victory over Incarnate Word at the McDermott Convocation Center.
The Wildcats won the first two sets 25-22 and 25-19 before dropping the third set 25-21. UIW jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead in the fourth set, but ACU rallied to finally take a 9-8 lead and never trailed again to take a 25-17 win in the decisive fourth set.
The win pushes ACU to 7-18 overall, but, more importantly, 7-5 in the Southland Conference. The Cardinals, meanwhile, fall to 7-14 and 5-7. The Wildcats have four matches remaining in the 2015 season – all on the road – starting with a doubleheader next weekend at McNeese State (Thursday) and at Nicholls (Saturday). The Wildcats will go into Thursday's match tied for fourth in the league.
The Wildcats dropped their home finale Thursday to a Nicholls team that entered the game 0-9, falling 3-1 to the Colonels. But ACU re-grouped Saturday to knock off an Incarnate Word team that lost to ACU, 3-1, at Moody Coliseum on Oct. 6.
Loerch had a match-high 14 kills, nine digs and two service aces in the win, while Siemens had 33 assists, two service aces and eight digs in the victory. Hoover picked up 14 digs and one assist in the victory.
Lexi Mercier had four kills and six block assists, while freshman
Lauren Walker had six kills, two solo blocks and three block assists for an ACU team that finished with 12.0 blocks. Freshman
Kendall Bosse had even kills and four blocks for the Wildcats.
Incarnate Word hurt itself with 32 hitting errors and the Wildcats had eight service errors in the match. The Wildcats' seventh win of the season tops their win total of six for the 2014 season.
