CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Going on the road and garnering two conference wins this week, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi volleyball team will return home in hopes of closing out an undefeated week of SLC play when it hosts McNeese Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Dugan Wellness Center.
The Islanders (8-8, 3-1 SLC) got back to a .500 winning percentage after defeating both UIW and SLC preseason favorite HCU this week on the road. They will look to bring that momentum home against an undefeated McNeese team (6-11, 4-0 SLC).
"We are excited to be back home with the Band, the DeepEnd, and our amazing community of fans here is Corpus Christi," said head coach
Steve Greene. "The Dugan Wellness Center is a great environment for volleyball and fans will see a great match against McNeese.
"McNeese has very talented players in all positions and are really well-coached. They will present us with a lot of challenges offensively, so we are going to need to be focused from start to finish," said Greene.
Multiple players are coming off impressive individual performances during the successful road swing. Junior
Kyndal Payne slammed at least 20 kills in both, including recording a double-double at HCU with 17 digs. Payne leads the conference in kills (217), kills/set (3/74), points (244.5) and points/set (4.22).
Junior
Leah Stolfus also notched a double-double at HCU with 16 kills and 11 digs, her career-first. She ranks fifth in the league in hitting percentage with a .325 efficiency.
Junior Kayle White recorded her career-high 25 digs against the Huskies, now totaling 190 for a 3.96/set mark on the year to rank fifth in the conference. Junior
Morgan Baese came off the bench Thursday to add 14 kills, her second-ever career match to record 10+ kills.
Graduate
Belle Morgan, a two-time SLC Setter of the Week honoree, leads the league in assists at 544 on the year, the only setter to record over 500 assists. This week, she set her season-highs for both a three-set (44 assists) and four-set (53 assists) match.
"Our team had two tremendous road wins these past few days and that's all thanks to the efforts and focus that each and every one of our student athletes has shown," said Greene.
As a team, the Islanders lead the league in kills per set (13.80), opponent kills (12.02/set), opponent assists (10.68/set), and opponent service aces (1.17/set). They rank second in points at 977.5, hitting percentage at a .235, and digs per set at a 15.88 mark.
"We have been improving match to matches and that's a testament to our assistant coaches.
Julia Carter has been providing consistent feedback to our blockers and attackers while
Kristin Watson is developing our defenders and serve receivers into stalwarts in the back court," Green said.
McNeese has not dropped a conference matchup so far, only dropping one set through its four matches against UIW on Thursday. The Cowgirls are anchored by the reigning SLC Defensive Player of the Week Bailey Tillman who ranks fourth in the league in digs per set (4.17).
The Islanders lead McNeese 17-6 in the all-time record. The teams split the yearly series last year as both occasions went to five sets with A&M-Corpus Christi winning 3-2 at home in the second meeting.
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