FORT WORTH, TX: The Texas Wesleyan University women’s volleyball team (13-17, 6-6 RRAC) celebrated Parents’ Day, hosting Red River Conference opponent Our Lady of the Lake University (10-4, 8-3 RRAC) on Saturday. The Lady Rams took a hard fought 3-1 loss to the Lady Saints by scores of 25-22, 26-24, 25-17, and 26-24.

It was a very close first set as neither team boasted more than a three point lead. The Lady Rams took a two-point 15-13 lead with back to back kills from Evoni Darling and Lynsay Buell, but the Lady Saints came right back to tie the game at 15. Wesleyan took a 19-17 lead with a kill by Katherine Rosenbush, but the Saints retaliated again and took a 20-19 lead with back to back kills by Marquisha Matthews. The Lady Saints kept that lead to win the first set 25-22.  

The second set was tight as the score was even a total of 12 times with six lead changes mingled in. Both teams played solid defense as three Lady Rams and two Lady Saints were already in double digit dig figures. As the two teams traded points off kills, Our Lady of the Lake finally took a 22-20 lead. After a Wesleyan timeout, back to Back kills from Rosenbush tied the game at 22. The Lady Saints pushed forward again and had Texas Wesleyan with their backs against the wall with a pair of set points at 24-22. The Lady Rams showed great discipline and resiliency to return fire, led by Darling who knocked down a kill to give Wesleyan a 25-24 lead, and Rosenbush recorded her seventh kill of the set to take the 26-24 game two win.

After such a great performance in game two the Lady Rams came out flat in the third set, and OLLU took full advantage of it. The Saints went on n 12-1 run to take a 13-4 lead before Texas Wesleyan stopped the bleeding with a timeout. The Lady Saints kept their big lead and took game three 25-17. 

The Lady Rams reset in the fourth game, and the battle of the opening two sets continued, with both teams warring for the lead. The Lady Saints took a 16-14 lead by way of Ram errors and kept the lead until they ran into some errors of their own and Haelee Horne tallied a kill to give Welseyan a 21-19 lead. A kill by Jennifer Kline gave the Rams a 23-21 lead, but back to back kills again from Matthews tied the game at 23. Texas Wesleyan took their last timeout to try and stop any momentum, but Matthews wasn’t fazed as she tallied two more kills to lead Our Lady of the Lake to a 26-24 game four win and take the match 3-1.

"We worked hard the entire match and it was a good fight", said Head Coach Christy Clawson, "We had some mental breakdowns that kept us from taking the momentum of the match."

The match had a total 36 tie scores and 14 lead changes. OLLU hit .219 to Wesleyan’s .152. The Rams blocked 10 attacks to the Saints’ 4 blocks, and the sideout percentage favored the Lady Saints 56%, to the Lady Rams 50%.  

Darling led the Lady Rams with 39 assists and 16 digs. Kristen Venhuizen notched a team high 13 kills and 19 digs. Horne tallied 10 kills and 15 digs. Stephanie Dominguez finished with 19 digs, while Marissa Rangel had 17 digs in the loss.

The Lady Rams play their last regular season home game of the season on Tuesday, November 2, at 7:00 p.m. when they take on Southern Nazarene University at the Sid Richardson Center.