By Wes Bloomquist || wes.bloomquist@angelo.edu
CANYON – The Angelo State volleyball team saw its nine-match winning streak end with a four-set Lone Star Conference loss (25-22, 25-13, 19-25, 25-12) to West Texas A&M on Saturday at the WTAMU Fieldhouse.
The Belles (10-2, 5-1 LSC) were limited to a .148 attacking percentage in the match which was their first conference and road loss of the season, while WT (12-3, 5-0 LSC) finished with a .286 attacking percentage and had a 53-44 dig advantage. The match's result puts the Lady Buffs atop the LSC standings for the moment with the Belles second place ahead of Tarleton State (4-2 LSC) and Texas Woman's (4-2 LSC) which are tied for third. ASU returns to action at 7 p.m. on Tuesday against Texas A&M-Commerce at the Junell Center before travelling to play at Tarleton State on Friday and then Newman on Saturday in a neutral-court match at Stephenville's Wisdom Gym.
"Our team had a good response to being challenged after the second set," ASU head coach
Chuck Waddington said. "We were our own worst enemy in the other sets. We had too many errors versus a disciplined team. We needed to have a more aggressive mindset."
Mallory Blauser led Angelo State with 12 kills, including four in the first set, and also had two blocks against the Lady Buffs who are now 6-2 at home this season and are on four-match winning streak.
Shelby Wilt paced the ASU defense with 11 digs and
Arielle Bond supplied four blocks and four kills.
Alexa Johnson had four kills, four blocks and 32 assists from the setter position and
Abbie Lynn and
Zoey Hanrahan each provided seven kills as the Belles fell to 4-1 on the road.
The Lady Buffs took the first set by three despite the Belles coming back from a seven-point deficit at 14-7 to make it 19-18 on a Blauser kill. WT would regain a three-point advantage at 23-20 on a Sydney Harlan kill before an errant Lady Buff set and a kill from Johnson had the set back to one-point at 23-22. The Lady Buffs closed out the set with two kills from Bevan to take the early advantage and carried the momentum over to the second set with a commanding 25-13 win. ASU was limited to a .100 attacking percentage in the second set and committed seven errors after having only two in the first set. WT had an absurd .538 attacking percentage in the second set.
Angelo State responded from its two-set deficit by taking a 25-19 third-set win over the Lady Buffs with a .231 attacking percentage and limiting itself to four errors. The Belles had a strong start to the set and led 10-6 on a Lynn kill and would go on a 6-0 run to take a 20-12 lead. The string of points was started on a WT error and also included kills from Johnson and Bond. WT was limited to a .051 attacking percentage in the third-set loss and committed 10 error which included the final point of the set.
West Texas A&M senior Lauren Bevan recorded a match-high 22 kills and finished with a .500 attacking percentage to go along with her 10 digs against the Belles, while Sydney Harlan added 12 kills and Lauren Britten provided a team-high 15 digs. The Lady Buffs had an 8-7 block advantage over ASU with Jessica Johnson leading the way with five blocks and Cori Haley adding four.
Blauser now leads the Angelo State attack with 161 kills (3.83 per set), while Wilt has 223 digs (5.07 per set) and Johnson has 500 assists (11.36 per set) this season. MacLeay, who came into the match with 899 career digs, now has 914 career digs after finishing Saturday's match with eight. Wilt's 11 digs against WT takes her record-setting career total to 2,085 entering the fifth week of her senior season.
The loss extends Angelo State's losing streak against the Lady Buffs in Canyon to 24 matches which dates back to the 1993 season. ASU topped WT in the 2012 season at the Junell Center to break up a 15-match overall losing streak to the Lady Buffs but have since lost the past seven matches which includes four postseason contests.
