ABILENE -- Abilene Christian began its two-match homestand Thursday with a sweep of Northwestern State, 3-0, at the Teague Center. Senior
Katelyn Mueller, who plays her final home match Saturday at 1 p.m. vs. Central Arkansas, was the Wildcats' leading scorer with 18.5 points as she was credited with 16 kills, two aces and a block assist.
Junior outside hitter
Lindsey Toney additionally had a strong night, hitting .529 on 17 attempts with 11 kills. Meanwhile, junior
Kate Blasingame led the Wildats with 10 digs, and
Madison Rohre and
Sarah Nading combined for 21 of the team's 23 assists.
ACU won the match by scores of 25-17, 29-27 and 25-19 in improving to 7-4 overall (6-3 Southland), while the Lady Demons dropped to 2-9 and 0-9.
A Mueller ace in the first set served as a catalyst for a 7-1 run that flipped a one-point deficit (11-12) into an 18-13 lead.
Braden Bossier followed Mueller's point with consecutive kills, and additional points were supplied by Toney and Blasingame.
ACU attained its 20th point of the first set on a NSU service error, and finished on a 5-1 run capped by a
Mackenzie Harris service ace.
Mueller recorded eight kills in the second set, one of which gave ACU a formidable 23-18 lead, but the Lady Demons rallied and capitalized on back-to-back Wildcat errors to tie the score at 24-24. They would again battle back to knot things up at 26-26 and 27-27 thanks to kills by Darria Williams and Autumn Gentry; however, that's as far as they'd get as ACU fought back to take a 2-0 lead on back-to-back points from Blasingame (5K) and
Breanna Box (7K).
ACU trailed by as many as three points early in the third set, but took off on a 5-1 run in grabbing a 12-11 lead and never trailed again. Mueller's second ace of the match gave the Wildcats' that one-point advantage as they steadily stretched their lead to as many as six points, first at 21-15 on Harris' second service ace.  From there the Wildcats received three additional kills from Mueller and finished the match on a kill by Toney.
With tonight's win, ACU has captured five of its last six matches from Northwestern State
