Box Score
FORT WORTH, TX: Texas Wesleyan University played host to the 2010 Red River Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament on Friday. The Lady Rams (15-19) kicked off the day as the fifth seed, taking on fourth seeded Southwestern Assemblies of God University (18-17). The Lady Rams lost a heart breaking battle in five sets to the Lady Lions in the opening round (12-25, 26-24, 25-21, 10-25, and 16-14).
The Lady Rams and Lady Lions came out swinging, and SAGU got the better of Wesleyan, jumping out to an 8-4 lead. The Rams took a timeout that turned out to be very timely, as Wesleyan went on a 14-1 run to grab the lead at 19-9. The Lady Rams cruised from there, taking a 25-12 win led by Lynsay Buell with seven kills. The Lady Rams were nearly flawless hitting .485 behind 17 kills on 33 attempts and only one error. Wesleyan held SAGU to only six kills on 32 attempts and four errors, hitting just .062.
The second set was a closer battle as both teams played tough defensively. SAGU inched out to a 24-22 set point lead, but Wesleyan shut the door to tie with a kill from Haelee Horne. The Lady Lions took a point with a kill by Brittani Toole, and a Lady Ram error gave SAGU the 26-24 game two win to even the match one apiece.
Game three was another close one, with SAGU edging out Texas Wesleyan 25-21 behind Toole who had five kills. The Lady Rams couldn’t control the miscues, committing 11 in game three. The Lady Rams only hit .059 in the third set, to the Lady Lions .106.
The fourth set was all Wesleyan with Evoni Darling spreading the ball around nicely. Lynsay Buell tallied eight kills in the game, which gave her 21 in the match. The Lady Rams took a 17-4 run to start the game and kept the pressure on, keeping the Lady Lions off balance. Wesleyan dominated most of the game and took a 25-10 win to force a fifth set.
In the fifth set, the Rams trailed 4-0 before surging ahead for a 9-7 lead. The Lady Lions battled back to tie the game five more times. Ten hitting errors proved to be to much to overcome for the Lady Rams who eventually fell 16-14.
The Lady Rams were led by Darling, scoring a 55 assist, 15 dig double-double. Buell led all players with 21 kills, hitting a balmy .366. Katherine Rosenbush had 14 kills, hitting .256 in the match. Horne grabbed a double-double with 13 kills, and 25 digs. Marissa Rangel led all players with 40 digs in the loss.
In other tournament action, Wiley College (20-8) defeated Texas College (5-29) 3-0 (25-6, 25-20, 25-8) to advance to the semifinal match. Second ranked UT-Brownsville (33-1) got past SAGU to advance to the championship with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-10, 25-23) win. Wiley College got past Our Lady of the Lake University 3-0 (25-21, 25-16, 28-26) to advance to the championship match.
Wiley College will play the University of Texas at Brownsville for the 2010 Red River Conference Championship tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. in the Sid Richardson Center.
