By Wes Bloomquist || wes.bloomquist@angelo.eduKINGSVILLE – Mallory Blauser and
Brianna Sotello combined for 38 kills and
Alexa Johnson established a new career-high with 57 assists to help lead the Angelo State volleyball team to a 3-1 (28-30, 25-23, 25-9, 25-19) Lone Star Conference win over Texas A&M-Kingsville on Saturday at the Hampton Inn Court.
The Belles (16-5, 9-4 LSC) have now won four straight matches after their win over the Javelinas (14-10, 5-7 LSC) and their 3-1 win on Friday over St. Edward's. ASU has now won 10 straight matches over TAMUK and is tied with Tarleton State (9-4 LSC) for third in the LSC standings and one game behind TWU (10-3) with four conference matches remaining on its schedule. Â
"We were able to bounce back from the first set because we stayed together as a team," Sotello said. "We kept our confidence and trusted each other as a team. Our middles worked extra hard and that freed up our outside hitters for points. Our block was really good and helped us out a lot."
Blauser led the team with 21 kills and finished with a .375 attacking percentage, while Sotello established a career-high 23 digs to go along with 17 kills. Sotello, who came into the weekend with 67 total kills and 62 total digs this season, finished the two-match weekend with 37 kills and 44 digs to lead the Belles. Johnson's career night of 57 assists helped the Belles to a .323 team attacking percentage and she also had 10 digs.
"We had to generate momentum after that first set," ASU head coach
Chuck Waddington said. "We kept hurting ourselves with errors there. We would make two good plays and then we would be called for being in the net or double hit. They were silly errors that we had to clean up and we were able to the rest of the match. It was things we were doing to ourselves and once we cleaned that up, it really paid off."
Zoey Hanrahan led ASU's block with five blocks and also added six kills, while
Cerbi Ritchey provided nine kills and
Daeleigh Castile had six kills.
Shelby Wilt added 14 digs and led the Belles with three service aces.
Katie MacLeay added nine digs and Ritchey matched a career-high with six digs.
Angelo State finished with an 11-8.5 block advantage over the Javelinas and also had a 70-66 dig advantage. The Belles limited themselves to 14 errors in the match, while TAMUK had 25 errors on its home court. Krystal Faison led the Javelinas with 16 kills and Kelsey Washington and Stephanie Johns each had 14 kills. Casey Klobedans finished the match with 45 assists and eight digs, while Faison led the Javelinas with 19 digs. Â
ASU and TAMUK played a highly contested first set, with the Javelinas pulling it out 30-28 after it was tied at 21 on a Javelina attacking error. The Belles were down 14-8 at one point in the set, but continued to fight back and tied the set eight times before a kill by Washington put it away and gave the Javelinas the advantage. The Belles would respond by taking the second set which was also close throughout. ASU led 19-15 on a Faison error, but back-to-back kills by Washington cut ASU's lead to two at 22-20. An ace on the next point trimmed the lead to one and it was tied at 22 with a kill by Klobedans before Sotello closed out the set with three kills. ASU dominated the third set to the tune of 25-9 and closed out the day with Blauser contributing the final three Belle points on kills.
Blauser now leads Angelo State with 291 kills this season, while Johnson has 737 assists and Wilt has 385 digs (5.07 per set). Wilt, who is ASU's all-time digs leader, has 2,247 career digs through 128 matches in her record-setting career.
ASU wrapped up its regular-season road schedule with the win at Kingsville and finished with a 8-4 record away from San Angelo this season. The Belles will now begin a five-match home stand to finish off the regular season, starting with a 7 p.m. match on Tuesday against Texas-Permian Basin at the Junell Center. ASU also hosts West Texas A&M at 7 p.m. on Friday and Eastern New Mexico at 2 p.m. next Saturday.
"I'm excited to be back home in front of our home crowd, but we've got some tough matches coming up," Waddington said. "We can't rest on our laurels because we've won four straight and we are back home. There's still a lot of work left to do and we're going to have to be ready to compete hard."
