HOUSTON, Texas – In a weekend that features a pair of matches between Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas Southern, the Islanders rolled to a 3-0 game one victory Friday night at the Health and Physical Education Arena.
It marks A&M-Corpus Christi's (3-1) first straight set victory of the season after having to go four in wins over Oral Roberts and Sam Houston last weekend. The win was fueled by another team effort, with all 18 available student-athletes seeing time on the court against the Tigers (0-5).
The Islanders turned in a .271 team hitting percentage while keeping Texas Southern to .121. At the service line, A&M-Corpus Christi aced the Tigers five times with junior
Kendall Mahaney, the reigning SLC Defensive Player of the Week, recording a pair of aces.
Junior
Kayla White dug 11 attacks for the match high. Sophomore
Rylee Achtzehn turned in six kills to lead A&M-Corpus Christi's offense for the night.
"We had a great team effort tonight," said head coach
Steve Greene. "I am really happy to see how well our team focused on communication and anticipating plays. Kayla and Kendall did outstanding jobs in serve recieve and on defense for us. They kept rallies going and really pushed the pace of our transition offense. All three of our setters did very well at distributing and putting hitters in good situations. It's really nice to see the setters start to control the game play and for their confidence to continue to grow."
Set one started out with the Islanders on a 4-0 scoring run with four different players registering a kill. The Tigers finally got on the board, but Achtzehn and junior
Leah Stolfus went back-to-back at the net to keep it a 6-1 score. The Islanders continue to expand their lead, going up as much as 18-9 before Texas Southern had a burst for four consecutive points. However, sophomore
Tori Arrington cut it short with the attack and A&M-Corpus Christi took a 1-0 lead in the match after closing out set one 25-16.
The second set had the Tigers win the opening point for their first lead of the match, but it was met with a pair of scoring runs as the Islanders quickly went up 14-3. Sophomore
Tayah Little attacked out of the middle before freshman
Kenna Buchanan aced the Tigers to keep the Islanders up by double digits at 17-7. Graduate
Morgan Smith then hammered the last point down to secure the second set 25-12 for a 2-0 advantage.
Set three remained tight the whole way as the teams rallied for back-and-forth points. Kills by junior
Kyndal Payne and sophomore
Brooke Copley kept the set tied at 16-all. The Tigers won the next point to take a lead yet again, but it would be the last as the Islanders fired relentlessly to take nine of the next 11 points for a 25-19 final set.
The Islanders now eye the sweep, looking to go two-for-two over Texas Southern with a 1 p.m. matchup on Saturday to wrap up the weekend. The match will be streamed live on YouTube.
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