Stephen F. Austin
23-6, 11-2Southland
Texas A&M - Corpus Christi
11-13, 8-5Southland
Islanders Too Much for Ladyjacks in 3-0 Halloween Night Setback
10/31/2017 8:34:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
Daron fires in 13 kills, but Ladyjacks held to .169 attack percentage
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - For its last three Halloween matches, the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team has come up short. That was the case Tuesday night inside Shelton Gym as the Southland Conference leading Ladyjacks ran into a rejuvenated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi squad that hit at a .267 clip while holding SFA to an attack percentage of .169 in a 3-0 loss.
Sophomore Danae Daron delivered a match-best 13 kills - nine of which came in a wild final frame - but no other Ladyjack went over eight kills or hit better than .250.
Other results around the league included a 3-0 Abilene Christian win at Sam Houston State and a 3-2 win for Central Arkansas at Northwestern State. With those results, SFA and Central Arkansas are now tied for first in the league standings with identical 11-2 Southland records.
At no point through the first two sets did the Ladyjacks hold the lead and the first signs of the Islanders' powerful offense asserting itself came early in the opening frame when a pair of kills helped the hosts break a 3-3 tie with a 3-0 run.
In all, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi racked up a whopping 16 kills through the first set and led by as many as 11 points after a Brittany Gilpin termination made matters 24-13. Back-to-back kills from Hollas and Coleman staved off a pair of set point tries by the Islanders before Madison Fitzsimmons pushed the visitors up 25-15 with her set-clinching kill.
It was the Islanders' impenetrable front row defense down the stretch that decided the middle frame. An ace from Evans and a termination from Coleman made up half of a 4-1 run by the hosts to knot things at 18-all, but after the squads swapped points for a 19-19 tie the upper hand went to the visitors. A pair of kills followed by back-to-back rejections capped a 5-1 run by the Islanders that put SFA in a 2-0 hole.
A wild finish gave costume-clad fans what they paid for as neither squad secured a lead greater than three points in the final frame. Keeping the Islanders at arms length in the early stages of the frame, the Ladyjacks used a 3-0 run featuring a kill from Evans and back-to-back attack errors by the visitors to take an 8-7 lead.
SFA remained in front and watched its advantage grown to 15-12 following one of Daron's eight kills in the set coupled with another Islanders miscue on the attack. The visitors, however, used a 3-0 run consisting of three kills to knot matters at 21-21 and set up a frantic finish.
Neither team was willing to concede and inch as the scoreboard moved from 25-25 all the way to 30-30 and beyond. Daron's final kill of the frame provided the final deadlock of the match at 32-32 but the Islanders wore SFA down in the final point and exited with a win after Chloe Simon and Kristyn Nicholson slapped down consecutive kills to put an end to the tilt.
Gilpin finished with a match-best 15 kills for the Islanders while Green and Simon added 13 and 10 respectively. The Islanders finished with a 15-kill advantage over the Ladyjacks who got a match-high 25 digs from Lexus Cain in the back row while attempting to shut down the Islanders' attack.
Up next for SFA is a road trip of almost 400 miles northwest to Abilene, Texas. It's there that the Ladyjacks will try and maintain their standing as the top team in the Southland Conference when they do battle with Abilene Christian at 6:00 p.m. Thursday evening.
-SFA-
