ABILENE - The Abilene Christian volleyball team rolled out to a decisive 25-18 victory in game one over Central Arkansas behind four blocks, two aces and 10 kills. But the Wildcats couldn't duplicate that effort in games two through four and the Bears went on to claim a 3-1 win Thursday night at the Prince Center.
Central Arkansas slipped past the Wildcats in game two, 26-24, before leading from wire-to-wire in games three and four by scores of 25-12 and 25-17. The win lifted UCA's overall and conference season records to 5-9 and 1-1, while the Wildcats dropped to 0-14 in wrapping up their punishing month-long road trip.
ACU played its best first game of the season tonight in jumping out to a 1-0 lead over the Bears, who were last year's Southland Conference runners-up. The Wildcats hit just .229 but only made two errors while their defense dug out 17 attacks and put up four blocks, two of which were solo efforts by
Lexi Mercier.
Lauren Walker also started hot, connecting on four of seven attempts (.571) along with an ace, and Jennie Loerch hit .375 with three kills.
Conversely, UCA got off to a terribly slow start complete with 11 hitting errors. Their preseason all-conference honoree Fulani Petties hit -.286 in game one and the normally reliable Heather Schnars collected four errors in her 15 attack attempts.
But the Bears slumber did not last long as they jumped out to a quick lead in game two led by a rejuvenated Schnars, who rebounded from her game-one disappointments with a 9.0-point second set.
With Schnars' performance leading the UCA charge, the Bears continually padded their lead and led by as many as six points before the Wildcats stormed back into the fray. After Schnars made it a 23-17 game, the Wildcats scored two consecutive points from freshman
Kendall Bosse followed by an ace from senior
Madison Hoover.
Hoover then committed a service error to bring UCA to match point, but was redeemed for a brief moment after Schnars' try failed to clear the net as well.
Setter
Sarah Siemens sneaked a shot over the net following the Schnars miscue to make it 24-22 and then was part of a block by Walker to bring the Wildcats to within a point of the lead. Walker tied the score at 24-24 following another block on Schnars that forced the home team to regroup and call a time out.
Well, whatever was said during that stoppage certainly had an effect on all parties involved as the Bears won the last two points of game two in addition to the first five points of game three. ACU held a short-lived lead in game four, but watched the Bears close the set on a 10-4 run after getting to within two points at 15-13.
Schnars tonight led all players with 22 kills and 23.5 points, while the Wildcats were paced offensively by Loerch (13.5 points), Walker (12.5) and Bosse (10.5).
Siemens posted 33 assists for the Wildcats and Hoover led the ACU defense with 17 digs.
The Wildcats return to action a week from tonight with the start of a season-long, five-match homestand at Moody Coliseum vs. Northwestern State. Match time is 6:30 p.m.
