By Wes Bloomquist  ||  wes.bloomquist@angelo.edu

SAN ANGELO – Shelby Wilt had a match-high 24 digs and Brianna Sotello slammed down 18 kills to help lead the Angelo State volleyball team to its fifth straight win with a 3-0 (25-18, 25-15, 25-22) non-conference victory over Texas-Permian Basin on Tuesday at the Junell Center.

The Belles (17-5) improved to 9-1 at home and in non-conference matches this season and finished the night with a 72-59 dig advantage and hit .282 as a team. ASU, which recorded eight aces, also picked up its ninth sweep of the season and also swept the home-and-away season series against the Falcons (11-14) with Tuesday's win paired with a Sept. 16 win in Odessa.

"I thought we were able to put a lot of service pressure on them in the match and we had a good middle-setter connection," said ASU freshman Daeleigh Castile who had eight digs and five kills against the Falcons. "I think that our chemistry on the court is getting a lot stronger. We are really connecting as a team and feel good out there together."

Sotello has now recorded 55 kills in the past three matches with her 18 kills on Tuesday and also added nine digs, two block assists and finished with a .341 attacking percentage. Mallory Blauser joined Sotello with a double-digit kill performance with 12 kills, while Zoey Hanrahan supplied eight kills, four block assists, four digs and hit .400. Alexa Johnson, who was named the LSC Setter of the Week for the second time this season on Tuesday afternoon, contributed 45 assists and eight digs for the Belles in the match against the Falcons. Wilt led the ASU defense with her 24 digs, while Katie MacLeay added six digs and Brooke Robertson had five.

The service game saw the Belles own an 8-2 advantage over the Falcons. The eight aces were one of a season high for the team which had nine aces against Harding and Western New Mexico earlier this season and came with MacLeay leading the way with three and Johnson supplying two. Sotello, Castile and Wilt also had an ace against UTPB.

"Our style is a lot different than UTPB so it usually takes us a while to figure it out, but we played really well from the start tonight," ASU head coach Chuck Waddington said. "We did a great job with our serving and had a high number of aces. We were able to get them out of system tonight and had a really clean match."

The Belles will carry their five-match winning streak into a pair of Lone Star Conference matches this weekend at the Junell Center starting with No. 24-ranked West Texas A&M which is on a 17-match winning streak. ASU and WT have met the in the past two NCAA Division II South Central Championship finals and will renew their rivalry at 7 p.m. on Friday. The Belles will then host ENMU at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

"We are cleaning our game up and being smarter with our play," Waddington said. "You get that with experience and it's good to see that from our team at this point in the season. We have an opportunity on Friday to play one of the top teams in the country in our gym. It's a good chance for us and we have to be ready to compete. They always want to beat us and we'll have to go out there and want to beat them."