The ACU volleyball team has had trouble maintaining a lead and finishing games strong recently.
The Wildcats lost their second straight match in five sets on Monday night, Sept. 19 at the McDermott Center in San Antonio against Incarnate Word.
The ‘Cats led early 25-18 and 25-22 but couldn’t keep the Cardinals from rebounding to a five set Lone Star Conference home win (18-25, 13-25, and 5-15).
The loss sinks the Wildcats season record to 7-6 and 3-2 in the conference. The Cardinals improve to 6-7 (3-4 LSC).
The Wildcats won the first set behind a .404 hitting percentage, unfortunately the team only hit .129 for the entire match and had almost as many errors (20) as kills (21) in sets three through five. UIW put up a .350 hitting percentage in the three sets it won. The Cardinals outblocked ACU 12.0 to 5.0.
Jennie Hutt recorded 19 kills in the defeat.
ACU has played five sets six times this season, including four of the last five. The team is 3-3 in these matches but Monday marked the third time an opponent has come from behind after being down 2-0.
Head coach Kellen Mock feels her team must improve its play if the ‘Cats want to start winning ball games.
“We’ve had multiple games where we’ve been one team in one set and another team in a different set. If we continue to do that, the team will keep struggling. There is some mental maturity we need to attain as a team and that’s what practice the next few weeks will be about.”
“It’s not going to be an easy road ahead. We face the heaviest part of our schedule coming up so we’ll have to fight through this.”
The volleyball team was also beat on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 17 by Texas Women’s University in a match eerily similar to Monday.
The loss was another tough one to swallow. The Wildcats won the first two sets 25-17 and 25-22 however, TWU wasn’t going to give the ‘Cats an easy three set match. The Pioneers mounted an enormous comeback winning the next three sets 25-22, 25-14, and 17-15.
ACU was in control for much of the first two sets with a .400 hitting percentage in the first and TWU never lead in the second. On the other hand, things began to look a bit shaky in the third. Texas Woman’s jumped out to a 4-0 lead, maintaining an advantage throughout the set.
Errors killed the Wildcats in the fourth set. The team committed eight with a minute .091 hitting percentage. The Pioneers hit .333 and it showed, as it won by a margin of 11.
The Wildcats attempted to take the fifth set and a match victory with a 15-14 lead but it wasn’t meant to be. WSU got consecutive kills from Katelyn Osborne and Chloe’ Tate, then later won on an attacking error by Rachel Riley.
Jennie Hutt led the ‘Cats with 23 kills. Sara Oxford and Neely Borger also contributed offensively (18 kills, .412 hitting percentage for Oxford and 12 kills, .333 for Borger) for ACU.
Mock feels the youth of the team probably isn’t a reason for the lack of success lately.
“I don’t think age has anything to do with how tough we are. Experience does count for something but the problem right now is mental toughness and pushing ourselves at the end of a match.”
“There is a lot of potential for this team. It’s not all negative. We can point out what needs to be worked on but the girls shouldn’t focus on it too much.”
ACU will return to Moody Coliseum for a couple of home games against West Texas A&M University and Eastern New Mexico University on Thursday, Sept. 22 and Saturday, Sept. 24. The games will start at 7p.m. on Thursday and 2 p.m. Saturday.
