BATON ROUGE, La. – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi volleyball team dropped the final nonconference match of its 2026 slate on Tuesday morning, playing right down to the wire with Southern in three straight sets but falling by a final tally of 23-25, 23-25, 24-26.
As the final score would indicate, the Islanders (2-9) finished neck-and-neck with the Lady Jaguars (3-9) in most categories, outpacing their opponents in kills 36 to 33, blocks 10 to 7 and hitting percentage .128 to .079 while just narrowly getting edged out in assists 30 to 29 and digs 44-38. The biggest separator between the two squads ended up being at the service line, as they committed 12 errors with four aces while Southern committed just four errors with seven aces on the other side.
The opening set on Tuesday ended up being the most back-and-forth of the three, with the two playing to 13 different tied scores and eight different lead changes and neither taking a lead of more than three points at any time. This push-and-pull ended up with the Islanders facing a set point down 24-21, but they managed to extend things further, scoring each of the next two points on a kill by
Ella Loges followed by an attack error. This put them on the brink of pushing the set to extra points, but on the next serve, they committed an unfortunate service error, sending them into a 1-0 deficit.
The ending to the opener ended up carrying over to the second set, as A&M-Corpus Christi was blitzed by the Jaguars out of the gates, surrendering 12 of the first 15 points to fall into a nine-point hole right away. This forced the team to start the climb back into things, and it got going quickly, ripping off a five-point run highlighted by kills from
Kaitlyn Aleshire,
Abby Huddleston and
Virginia Van Der Werff and an ace from
Madison Morrow that brought the deficit to a more manageable four. The furious comeback continued after this as well, culminating when the Islanders took a 23-22 lead after a kill from
Kenna Buchanan, another ace from Morrow and a pair of Southern errors. This once again brought them to the edge of a set win, but like before, they surrendered each of the final three points, cutting the incredible effort short before it finished.
In an effort to avoid having to fight back once again, the Islanders got off to a much better start in the third set, playing close at first but opening up a lead toward the middle thanks to three kills from Van Der Werff and
Tatum Mason and a pair from
Erin Herrmann. This advantage reached a high of five at 22-17, and a few points later, they found themselves with a set point at 24-21. Unfortunately, though, they once again were unable to finish, allowing five straight points that locked up the match for Southern.
The best individual day for A&M-Corpus Christi ended up coming from Van Der Werff, who led the team in both kills with six and assists with 17 while hitting a blistering .750 on eight attacks. On defense, Mason led the way in blocks with four with
Sydney Yohe following close behind with three, and
Lauren Sandvold posted the most digs with 10.
The Islanders will now try to get back on the positive side with a quick turnaround, making the drive to Thibodaux to start conference play against Nicholls on Wednesday at 11 a.m.
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