The ACU volleyball team continues conference play as they look to take on McNeese State Thursday night in Moody Coliseum.
The Wildcats are coming off their sixth five-set loss in conference against Incarnate Word last Saturday (27-25, 25-15, 23-25, 22-25 and 15-9).
Incarnate Word dominated the first two sets and seemed as though they would sweep the Wildcats as they jumped out to an early lead in set three.
ACU fought hard and claimed their first lead at 18-17. The Wildcats called time out with a tied score of 23-23 and delivered back-to-back kills from Taylor Nix, senior outside hitter from Crawford, and Lexi Mercier, sophomore middle blocker from Centennial, Colorado, for the win.
The Wildcats started behind again in set four and took the lead for the first time at 8-7 from a block from Mercier and Dorothy Swanson, sophomore outside hitter from White Oak.
Jennie Loerch, junior outside hitter from Georgetown, kickstarted a 7-3 run for her team as ACU capitalized on 10 attack errors from the Cardinals. Loerch went on to have the set-winning kill, one of her 14 kills for the night.
The Wildcats fell into an early deficit in the fifth set and were never able to recover ending it quickly for ACU.
This defeat dropped the Wildcats to 2-10 in conference and 4-22 overall.
“I think we will bounce back pretty well,” said Jason Bibler, head coach. “The girls have been pretty determined the last couple weeks, and I don’t think much will slow them down.”
McNeese State is coming off a three-set win over Southeastern Louisiana last Saturday (25-16, 25-15 and 26-24). This conference win put the Cowgirls at 4-8 in conference and 14-14 overall.
The Cowgirls came from behind in each set to claim the win with the biggest deficit at 21-15 in the third set.
Rachel Cagnina, senior outside hitter from Carol Stream, Illinois, and Rebecca Korenek, sophomore outside hitter from El Campo, each had 10 kills for the Cowgirls offense.
Malina Sanchez, junior outside hitter from Lake Jackson, also had seven service aces. Sanchez leads the conference in service aces with 60 on the season.
Kimberly Patterson, junior defensive specialist from LaPorte, Adison Giambrone, freshman defensive specialist from Richmond and Sanchez each collected 11 digs for the Cowgirl’s defense.
“McNeese is a solid team in all phases of the game,” Bibler said. “We will have to focus on our serve-receive and defense mostly. We know we have a good fight on our hands and it will be a tight match all the way through.”
The match will begin at 7 p.m.
