ABILENE— After opening their conference schedule with a win on Thursday night, the Wildcats had another tough test on Saturday when the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders came to town. The Islanders were 8-6 coming into the opening weekend of Southland play and were picked to finish just ahead of ACU in the preseason conference poll. The Wildcats were able to push all of the noise out of range as they came out prepared to battle, winning the match 3-1.
ACU has had a flair for the dramatic recently as four of their last seven sets have been decided by two points. The first set on Saturday was much the same as they traded points with the Islanders, but were able to secure the win down the stretch, 26-24. The Islanders bounced back in set two, capitalizing on Wildcat errors and using their defense to secure the set and even the match at 1-1. Set three seemed to be going in favor of AMCC before the Wildcat offense came alive. ACU went down by as many as seven points and found themselves trailing 15-9 before going on a 12-4 run to take a 21-19 lead. ACU would secure set three 25-23 which pushed the momentum fully in favor of the Wildcats. Despite the Islanders keeping set four close, ACU secured the set and match winning 25-22.
Both
Marybeth Sandercox and
Kennedy Shelstead hit over .400 for the match, .476 and .407, respectively. Shelstead led the team with 15 total kills as well as three block assists and four digs. Sandercox posted 12 kills to go with four block assists and five digs.
Madison Rohre ran a fluid offense at setter, tallying 44 assists and just missing a double-double totaling nine digs.
Scoring Summary
Set 1: 26-24
Set 2: 19-25
Set 3: 25-23
Set 4: 25-22
Mooney Said It
Student Athlete Interview
News and Notes
- Lindsey Toney notched her second double-double of the season, totaling 10 kills and 14 digs. Her dig total was one shy of her career-high.
- All five hitters for the Wildcats played a significant role, each hitter had six or more kills with three players notching double-digit kills.
- This is the second-straight season where the Wildcats have started conference play 2-0. The 2018 team won their first three matches, and nine of their first 10.
- ACU had four different players with at least eight digs in the match.
- The Islanders had four players with double-digit digs, including two players with 20-plus.
- Shelstead had six of her 15 kills in set one, Sandercox had six of her 12 kills in set three.
Up Next
ACU will head on the road for the next four matches. Next weekend, the Wildcats will face McNeese on Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. and then Lamar on Oct. 5 at 1 p.m.
