Volleyball team splits final two games of the season

The A&M-Commerce volleyball team finished the season 10th in the Lone Star Conference after a win and a loss in their final matches of the season. In just their fifth five-set match all season, the Lions came out on top over Texas A&M-Kingsville 3-2 to win their first Lone Star Conference match since Oct. 24 last Thursday night before losing 3-0 to Incarnate Word on Saturday.

A&M-Commerce began the first set of the A&M-Kingsville match by taking a 9-4 lead under the serving of senior Naomi Mays. The Javelinas managed to come back within a few points of the Lions soon after, but never took the lead. Sophomore Morgan Moeller finished off the set as A&M-Commerce won 25-21. The kill was one of seven for Moeller on the night.

In the second set, the Lions once again took an early lead, but A&M-Kingsville managed to come back. A 4-0 run with sophomore Reagan Hayes serving helped the Lions to a healthy 16-10 lead. From there it was all A&M-Commerce, and they went to a 2-0 set lead with a 25-13 win in the second frame.

From sophomore Ali Insell's serving in the third set, A&M-Kingsville took a massive 16-8 advantage. Insell had two service aces in the run, and freshman Lauryn Lozano got one of her 14 total kills as the Javelinas took the third game 25-15.

The visitors turned that momentum into a 25-20 win in the fourth game. Hayes and senior Rachel Shelton served for a few decent runs for the Lions early on, but the Javelinas fought back to keep the game close. With Virginia Hernandez serving, who led the floor with 23 digs on the night, the visitors took a 21-16 lead late on and did not look back.

It was only appropriate the fifth and final set ended with a kill by sophomore Rachel Robertson, who led the floor with 19 kills on the night. The Lions never lost the lead in the deciding game, and eventually Robertson slammed down the deciding point off of freshman Jordan Neal's set. Neal, who was in her second game back after injury, ended the game with 38 assists, four kills and eight digs.

Robertson said she was happy the team finally got another conference win after having to push through the matches without Neal.

"It felt really good," she said. "We missed that feeling. We had a pretty serious injury that we had to roll through, but we all bounced back and got back into our original positions."

Head Coach Craig Case said he was proud to see his players take the final set, and had special praise for Robertson's efforts.

"I thought our players did a nice job of really revving it up and playing real hard in that fifth set," he said. "Any time we can get Rachel Robertson the ball, that's option 1, 2, and even 3 sometimes. It's nice that she's really grown in to that ‘give me the ball' type of player, and she's done a nice job with it. So, I was really happy with that."

Incarnate Word won all three of the sets (25-21, 25-19, 26-24) last Saturday, but just missed out on making the LSC tournament.

Robertson again led the Lions with 10 kills and Neal had 31 assists. Playing in her last match as a Lion, senior Terra Ousley had nine kills and two blocks. She said having her team around her is the biggest thing she will miss about playing volleyball at A&M-Commerce.

"I feel like I played hard," Ousley said. "It's been a good year for my team in general. Even though we didn't meet all the goals we wanted to, we played hard. We met our goal of making sure we get better every goal and stay strong until the end."

Case said that is the main reason he thinks this season was not wasted, despite not reaching the LSC tournament.

"I felt like every point on the floor we were competitive and every point we played hard," he said. "So, I would never say the season was for nothing or wasn't worth it."