The No. 6 Lady Buffs of WTAMU continued their winning streaks of 22 consecutive home victories and 17 straight victories overall with sweeps of Eastern New Mexico and Southern Nazarene on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, respectively.
The Lady Buffs, having not lost since Sep. 14 to Florida Southern at the 2013 Colorado Premiere, started strong against the Zias of Eastern New Mexico in set one and never looked back [25-9, 25-11, 25-16].
“The players had a ‘hop to their step,’ and they came to play [on Friday],” head coach Jason Skoch said. “Just two weeks ago, we played ENMU and the match was very different.
“On Saturday [versus SNU] was the return of our demons. The players were happy with Friday night’s results, and that worried the coaching staff because we knew coming in SNU is big and good. Therefore, we had to spend more time doing ‘effort’ drills before a match, which is no fun [for the players].”
WT was led offensively by sophomore Lexi Davis, who hit a Lady Buff single match record of .917 on the night, with eleven kills. Junior Lauren Bevan chipped in with nine kills and junior Kameryn Hayes had eight. Hayes also recorded 30 assists and freshman Kyli Schulz led the team with eight digs.
“Early on, [Lexi] had a few kills where her arm was very fast,” Skoch said. “[Her] hits had some pop – we knew she was on, but had no clue she was doing that good [regarding her .917 percentage].”
WT hit an astounding .494 as a team on the night and recorded 6.5 blocks while holding ENMU to .024 as a team. The Zias struggled offensively with 22 attack errors and were only able to record three blocks defensively.
The Lady Buffs improved their overall record against ENMU to 60-11 all-time and 12-0 in Lone Star Conference play this season. The Zias fell to 5-16 on the year and 3-9 in LSC play.
Things didn’t go as easily for WT in their non-conference match-up against Southern Nazarene, however, but the Lady Buffs were still able to sweep the Crimson Storm [25-19, 25-19, 25-16] behind Davis’ twelve kills. Senior Halie Harton recorded ten kills and Bevan had nine.
Hayes tallied 30 assists and redshirt freshman Lauren Britten led both teams with 17 digs.
WT hit .294 for the match and recorded eleven total blocks defensively while holding SNU to a .127 clip. Both teams had 16 attack errors and the Crimson Storm recorded 6.5 blocks.
The victory pushed the Lady Buffs’ overall record against SNU to 5-0 and improved their overall season record to 23-3.
The Crimson Storm fell to 19-8 on the season, and they currently hold a 9-1 record in the Great American Conference.
WT will remain home for the upcoming weekend of matches, the first against the No. 17-ranked Belles of Angelo State on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. The Lady Buffs will then turn around and host the TexAnns of Tarleton State on Nov. 9 at 2 p.m.
