The No. 6-ranked WTAMU volleyball team finished the regular season with Lone Star Conference victories over the Pioneers of Texas Woman’s on Nov. 15 and the Lions of Texas A&M-Commerce on Nov. 16. The Lady Buffs end the 2013 season with a perfect 16-0 record in LSC play and a current winning streak of 22 matches.
“I don’t know how I ‘feel’ at the moment,” head coach Jason Skoch said. “I’m trying to decompress from this weekend – very emotionally taxing. The players had to beat two great teams and also beat the pressure of finishing off the undefeated regular season [in conference play].”
WT dropped the first set to TWU, 16-25, but were able to recover and take the final three sets [25-18, 25-18, 25-23] for a hard-fought victory in Denton, TX.
Sophomore Lexi Davis led the team offensively with a career high-tying 14 kills. Redshirt senior Laura Iwuchukwu had twelve kills and senior Halie Harton recorded a double-double with eleven kills and 17 digs. Junior Kameryn Hayes had a match high of 47 assists while redshirt freshman Lauren Britten and freshman Kyli Schulz recorded 14 and 12 digs, respectively.
WT hit .201 as a team and had 24 attack errors and the Pioneers hit .196 as a team with 27 attack errors; TWU managed to out-block the Lady Buffs, 14-8.
“TWU, like the other top five schools in this conference, have all the parts to make a run if they get hot,” Skoch said. “So that win was huge, because it was at their place and it was intense. They took it to us in set one, but it was great how the players responded the next three.”
The Lady Buffs improved to 38-6 in 44 meetings with the Pioneers, and they have not lost to TWU in their last 20 matches. The loss dropped TWU to 20-9 and 10-5 in LSC play, but they were able to defeat the Zias of Eastern New Mexico the next day [25-8, 25-20, 23-25, 25-15] to ensure a second seed in the LSC tournament.
WT finished the season strong with a sweep of TAMUC on Saturday night in Commerce, TX [25-22, 25-16, 25-17].
Junior Lauren Bevan led the team with 13 kills, followed by senior Lee Golden with nine and Iwuchukwu with six. Hayes recorded 23 assists and Britten tallied 16 digs.
The Lady Buffs hit .262 as a team with nine attack errors and held the Lions to just .113 with 26 attack errors. WT had seven total blocks for the match while TAMUC was only able to put back three.
The win was the 20th consecutive victory for the Lady Buffs over TAMUC as well, and WT currently holds a 35-7 advantage all-time over the Lions.
The victory also pushed WT to a 28-3 finish for the 2013 season. TAMUC fell to 22-8 on the season and 9-7 in LSC play. The Lions will face off against the TexAnns of Tarleton State in the first round of the LSC tournament.
Thanks to their strong LSC play, WT will host the tournament at “The Box”. It will take place from Nov. 21-23.
