Stephen F. Austin
Abilene Christian University
Ladyjacks Primed to Bounce Back at Abilene Christian Thursday Evening
11/1/2017 11:17:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
SFA is tied with Central Arkansas for first place in Southland with three regular season matches to go
Stephen F. Austin (23-6, 11-2 Southland) at Abilene Christian (10-14, 6-6 Southland)
Thursday, Nov. 2 | 6:00 p.m. | Moody Coliseum (4,600) | Abilene, Texas
Live Stats | Watch ($) | Listen (SFAVolleyblog) | SFA Match Notes | Southland Conference Standings
THE FULL ROTATION
• Down to only three regular season matches on its 2017 schedule, the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team aims to maintain its standing at the top of the Southland Conference standings when the Ladyjacks embark on a journey of nearly 350 miles to do battle with league foe Abilene Christian at 6:00 p.m. Thursday evening inside Moody Coliseum.
• In possession of an 11-2 record in Southland Conference matches, the Ladyjacks are tied with Central Arkansas to the top spot in the league standings. Thanks to a 3-0 win over the Sugar Bears in Shelton Gym back on Thursday, Sept. 21, SFA owns a head-to-head tiebreaker over their league rivals from the Natural State should a tiebreak scenario come to pass.
• SFA continues to lead the Southland Conference in hitting percentage in both all matches (.265) and in Southland matches (.296). Other areas in which the Ladyjacks are tops in the 13-team league are digs per set (16.56), opponent service aces per set (0.85) and opponent blocks per set (1.43).
• Individually, junior Makenzee Hanna still ranks tops in the Southland Conference in terms of attack percentage. The DeSoto, Texas, product is attacking at a clip of .354 for the season and of the league's top ten attackers by percentage three wear purple and white. Freshman Anyia Williams ranks third in the league with an attack percentage of .341 for the season while sophomore Danae Daron is hitting at a rate of .331.
• On the road this season, SFA has constructed a record of 8-2 with their only losses in true road matches coming at Rice (3-2, Sept. 16) and at league rival Houston Baptist (3-0, Sept. 30).
• Heading into Thursday evening's matchup with Abilene Christian, SFA ranks among the top 15 teams in all of NCAA Division I volleyball in no fewer than four statistical categories including total service aces (11th, 160), total kills (12th, 1,361), total assists (14th, 1,263) and total digs (15th, 1,721).
SCOUTING ABILENE CHRISTIAN | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATISTICS
• Record vs. Abilene Christian | 6-2 (.750)
• In Nacogdoches, Texas | 2-0 (1.000)
• In Abilene, Texas | 3-1 (.750)
• At neutral sites | 0-0 (.000)
• Humphreys vs. Abilene Christian | 5-1 (.833)
• Armed with a one-and-a-half-match lead for the eighth and final spot in the upcoming Southland Conference Tournament, the Wildcats would like nothing more than to solidify their spot in the postseason with a second-straight win over SFA. Abilene Christian, now in its first full season as an NCAA Division I member, bested SFA in five sets inside Moody Coliseum in October of 2016.
• Winners of two straight and four of its last five matches, Abilene Christian returns to its home floor of Moody Coliseum where the Wildcats have posted a 4-2 record so far this season. Offensively, none of the Wildcats' top three attackers hit at a clip greater then .250, but each averaged greater than 2.00 kills per frame. Leading the way in that category is Jacey Smith and her 2.58 kills per set while Katelyn Mueller is a close second at 2.45 per frame. Lauren Walker averages 2.19 per set but her attack percentage of .245 is the best among Abilene Christian's ranks.
• It's on the defensive side of things where the Wildcats are the most dangerous as they rank second in the Southland Conference with 2.48 blocks per set. The two individuals who have played the biggest part in the Wildcats' stout front row defense are Walker and Lauren McNeil who both rank among the top ten in the Southland in rejections per frame. McNeil leads the team and ranks fifth in the league with 1.13 blocks per set while Walker is eighth in the Southland with 1.05 per frame.
• Amanda Chapa's efforts in the back row have not gone unnoticed either as the Wildcats' libero ranks second in the league with 4.76 digs per set.
LAST TIME OUT
• Danae Daron punched down nine of her team-high 13 kills in a wild third set, but the Ladyjacks could not overcome a Texas A&M-Corpus Christi squad that held marked advantage in every major statistical category as SFA dropped a 3-0 (25-15, 25-20, 34-32) decision to the Islanders on Halloween night inside Shelton Gym.
• Daron was the only SFA player who exceeded eight kills in the three-set battle. Entering Tuesday night's match, SFA owned the best team hitting percentage in the Southland Conference but nobody besides Daron attacked at a clip greater than .250.
• For only the fifth time in 2017, SFA did not surpass .200 as a team in terms of attack percentage. The Ladyjacks hit a collective .169 in the setback and were forced into 17 errors - the most by the team in a Southland Conference match this season.
• Defensively, Lexus Cain did all she could in the back row by scooping up a match-best 25 digs. That total tied a season-high for the Amarillo, Texas, product and upped her career total to 1,539. Cain now requires only 10 more digs to move up to fifth all-time in the history of the program in terms of career digs.
• Texas A&M-Corpus Christi snapped the Ladyjacks' 17-match winning streak inside Shelton Gym and became the first Southland Conference institution besides SFA to earn a victory inside the facility since 2015. Prior to Tuesday night, the last time a league opponent bested the Ladyjacks on their home court was on Nov. 14, 2015, when Incarnate Word emerged with a 3-2 triumph.
COMING UP NEXT
• In what is sure to be one of the premier Southland Conference matches of the 2017 campaign, SFA's final true road match of the season pits the Ladyjacks against longtime Piney Woods adversary Sam Houston State on Saturday morning. First serve inside Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum is set for 11:00 a.m. with both teams still in contention for the 2017 Southland Conference regular season crown.
-SFA-
