SAN ANGELO – In a highly-anticipated rematch of this past spring's LSC Championship Tournament final, the Belles bounced back from last night's loss with authority, playing their best volleyball of the season to give #15 UT Tyler their first loss of the season.
The win sees the Belles snap the Patriots' 15-match winning streak, as well as the Patriots' 27-match regular season winning streak, dating back to the spring season.
The Belles are the third team this season to hold the Patriots to a sub-.200 hitting percentage for the match; this was also the sixth match this season that the Belles hit over .300 as a team.
The hosts out-killed the Patriots 60-48 and out-dug them 61-53 for the match.
The Belles came out of the gates on fire, taking sets one and two 25-9 and 25-18 from the visitors. The Belles hit .444 and .350 in the first two sets, totaling 35 kills; a back-and-forth set three saw the Patriots take the set 25-21 before the Belles hit .519 as a team while only committing one error in the final set to win 25-19.
Sophia Berg turned in her best match of the season with a season-high 16 kills and a .333 attack percentage.
Kailyn Gilbreath came one dig shy of another triple-double, with 14 kills, 33 assists and nine digs while hitting .464 and only committing a single attack error.
Delaney Fuller notched her fourth double-double of the season with 10 kills to go along with 13 digs;
Grace White recorded nine kills and did not commit an error in 15 attempts, hitting .600 for the match.
Baleigh Allen and
Chloe Patton came up big on the defensive side of things, with Allen responsible for three solo blocks as well as three assisted blocks while Patton recorded 13 digs.
Jaedyn Woolley assisted 18 times off the bench and recorded eight digs; senior
Makenna Hanssen added in nine digs and a service ace.
The Belles are now 17-3 on the season and 10-1 in conference play; with the Patriots having played one more conference game than the Belles, they sit only a half-game ahead of the Belles in the standings, with the Belles now holding the potential tiebreaker over the Patriots.
The Belles return to action next weekend when they hit the road to face UTPB and Western New Mexico.
