Coming off two five-set victories and a game they won in four sets, Wildcat volleyball hopes to finish the last part of their conference schedule strong. 

These two five-set wins show the Wildcats’ ability to persevere, Head Coach Ijeoma Moronu Alstrup said.

“It was really great to see them play with confidence there at the end,” she said. “We’ve gone to five a lot this season but haven’t won all of them, so to be able to win two back-to-back was really big for our confidence and knowing that we can get things done whenever we need to.”

With two conference wins in a row, the team knows it is capable of winning more. Moronu Alstrup said she doesn’t have to motivate this team to win–they want it bad enough themselves. 

“The first thing that Hannah [Gonzalez] said Monday or Tuesday in practice was, ‘We only have four more guaranteed matches and there’s no reason why we can’t win all four of them,’” she said. “Knowing that we can execute on our game plans will be really important for these next three games.”

A standout player for Moronu Alstrup’s squad recently has been Hadlee Welch, freshman pin hitter from Lubbock. With a slower start to the season, Welch had a breakout game on Oct. 18 against Tarleton State University with 17 kills and a .314 hitting percentage. 

Incidentally, the Wildcats play Tarleton again this Saturday in Stephenville. Welch said she hopes to play with the same confidence and skill the team saw in the first matchup. 

“They’re our rivals, pretty much, so I just came in the game and just expected it was going to be a good game, so I just felt like my confidence was really good,” Welch said. “All I was thinking through my head was, ‘Just stay aggressive.’ I’m ready to get back into it. We know that we lost in five sets. We were really close.”

Currently sitting in fourth out of seven teams in conference, the Wildcats hope to play well in the last three regular-season games before hosting the Western Athletic Conference tournament in two weeks. 

“As many of these games as we can win is, of course, going to help us with our seeding for the conference tournament,” Moronu Alstrup said. “That’s really our biggest motivation right now is just putting ourselves into a good spot to be able to win the tournament.”

Welch agreed that the team will need to work with its current momentum through the end of the regular season into the conference tournament. 

“I think what’s really helped is these last three games we’ve won and just being able to continue that,” she said, “knowing that we’re about to play in the WAC tournament, just being able to prepare for that. And I feel like these games will definitely help us with that.”

Saturday’s match in Stephenville will begin at 1 p.m. and is the Wildcats’ last road game of the season.