OMAHA, Neb.—Abilene Christian finished their weekend in Omaha facing the Bengals of Idaho State. The Bengals are a familiar foe as the two teams squared off last season with ISU earning the win in a five-set thriller. The Wildcats new look team featured only
Marybeth Sandercox who played significant time in last season's meeting. Despite a hard fought battle, ACU fell 3-1 to the Bengals.
The first two sets heavily favored the Bengals as the Wildcats struggled to finish offensively. Down 2-0, the Wildcats were not phased as they turned their offense around for the next two sets. Freshman,
Breanna Box stepped into a starting role in set three and performed beyond her years, tallying 7 kills on a .471 hitting percentage as well as three blocks in just two sets.
The teams both had outstanding defensive efforts that led to several long rallies.
Mackenzie Harris totaled 30 digs in the match which is good for 10
th in ACU DI history for a single match and the sixth-most digs in a four-set match. She wasn't alone in her defensive efforts though as two others hit the double-digit dig mark and two just missed double digits by one dig.
Eighmy Dobbins earned her first career double-double with a career-high 10 kills and 10 digs.
Logan Browning put up 13 digs, her season-high as a freshman.
Scoring Summary
Set 1: 15-25
Set 2: 14-25
Set 3: 25-22
Set 4: 21-25
News and Notes
- Kennedy Shelstead and Eighmy Dobbins were both named to the all-tournament team.
- Shelstead hit .320 on the weekend, while Dobbins reached double-digit digs in each match.
- Mackenzie Harris averaged 5.09 digs on the weekend including 30 digs in this match.
- Madison Rohre ran a solid offensive effort putting together 47 assists and averaging 10.09 assists per set through her first three matches.
- This is the first time the team has start 0-3 since 2016 when they started the season 0-7.
- Marybeth Sandercox led the team with 18 block assists for the weekend.
Mooney Said It
On the positives she saw on the weekend: "Overall, our serve and pass game was good. We forced our opponents out of systems and held them to low passing numbers in all three matches. I believe we improved in at least one area of the game each time we took the floor. As we gain more experience, I can see our team doing some really great things moving forward. We are proud of their fight, grit and ability to play through unforeseen adversity."
On Brea Box's first collegiate action: "Brea did a great job coming into the match. Once she was able to get comfortable with the speed of the game, we saw great things from her offensively. She is a very physical player and we expect to see her gain more playing time as she continues to learn and adjust to our style of play and the speed of the collegiate game."
On what the team wants to focus on before next weekend: "We are going to continue to focus on our systems, trusting our training and trying to bring the confidence we gain in practice to the competition court."
On Shelstead and Dobbins making the all-tournament team: "Kennedy hit for really great numbers and played well throughout the weekend. Eighmy was low on errors in the front row, and passed for exceptional numbers in serve receive while also playing great defense."
Up Next
The team will travel to Rice for matches on Sept. 6 and 7, where they will play Rice and Loyola Marymount. Both games will start at 7 p.m.
