ABILENE - Abilene Christian's
Katelyn Mueller and
Braden Bossier paced the Wildcats' offense Saturday in a 3-0 loss to Central Arkansas at the Teague Center. The Bears won by scores of 25-20, 25-19, 25-18 in improving to 8-7 overall and 6-4 within the Southland Conference, while the Wildcats fell to 7-5 and 6-4 in completing their eight-match home season.
Mueller, a senior from Sugar Land, Texas who was making her final Teague Center appearance, recorded eight kills and was part of three blocks (one solo) to finish with 10.0 points. Her freshman teammate
Braden Bossier matched Mueller's kill total and was credited with a team high five block assists.
Madison Rohre had 20 of her team's 32 assists and
Mackenzie Harris led the Wildcats with 14 digs.
The Wildcats led as late as 18-17 in the first set (12 ties and six lead changes), but Central Arkansas was powered down the stretch by Lexi Miller, who finished the first stanza with four of her 12 kills. Miller's second kill of the set put UCA ahead 19-18 and several rallies later she provided the set-winning kill off an assist from Anna Williams (seven assists)
The second set again started as a tug of war as the two sides experienced two lead changes and nine ties, the last of which was at 16-16 when UCA's Amari Mitchell committed a service error. From there, however, the Sugar Bears would take off on a 6-0 run to go up 22-16 and sealed its 2-0 set lead with a kill by Madi Bowles (16 kills).
UCA started set three with some momentum in jumping out to a 10-4 lead. The Wildcats, though, kept battling back to cut that deficit down to two at 17-15 thanks to four kills off the bench from freshman outside hitter
Emily Van Dyke and blocks from
Lindsey Toney and Bossier. UCA responded to the threat with a kill by Charlie Tidwell (4 kills) and later benefited from consecutive Wildcat attack errors to go up 20-15.
ACU pushed back once more to get within three points at 21-18 on a Toney/Bossier block, but kills from Alexis Stumbough (9) and Bowels plus the team's 12th and final block gave UCA a sweep and moved into a tie with ACU in the Southland Conference standings
The Wildcats finish their regular season next week with matches March 23 and 27 at Houston Baptist and Sam Houston.Â
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