FORT WORTH, TX: The Texas Wesleyan University volleyball team (5-8) took a split in day one of the 5th Annual Wesleyan-Hughes Classic on Friday. The Lady Rams beat St. Thomas (5-4) in five sets (25-23, 32-34, 25-27, 26-24, 13-15) before dropping the night cap in five sets (25-21, 22-25, 26-28, 25-21, 15-11) to Wayland Baptist (9-4).

The Lady Rams won a nail biter against the University of St. Thomas Lady Celts in the early game in five sets.  The match was extremely close the entire time, each team volleying the lead as well as the ball.

In the first set, the Lady Rams gave up a 21-19 lead to give the Lady Celts the early advantage.

Wesleyan almost did the same thing in game two when the St. Thomas came back from a 21-18 deficit to take a 24-22 game point lead. The Lady Rams showed some resolve and battled with the Lady Celts until back to back kills from Katherine Rosenbusch tied the match and gave Wesleyan a 34-32 game two win.

The Lady Rams stole game three by going on a 4-1 run late. A couple of Lady Ram attacking errors gave St. Thomas a 24-23 lead before Wesleyan capitalized on a key ball handling error and Lynsay Buell gave the decisive kill to put the Lady Rams up 2-1 with a 27-25 third set win.

The Lady Celts evened up the match with a late 3-0 run in game four. The Lady Rams held a 24-23 game point lead after a Stephanie Dominguez kill, before St. Thomas took a quick timeout. After the timeout the Lady Celts teamed up with three kills from three different players to force a game five and took a 26-24 fourth set win.

The fifth set was extremely close as neither team could hold a lead. The Lady Celts scratched out to a small 11-9 lead before Wesleyan closed the door taking a 13-11 lead of their own. A kill by Meghan Finley, and a Lady Celt error put the Lady Rams over the top to take a 15-13 set, match win.

Rosenbusch led the Wesleyan with 18 kills, boasting a .400 hitting percentage. Alex Hendee had 18 kills, and 18 digs in the effort. Marissa Rangelposted 32 digs, Dominguez tallied 44 assist, and Angelica Arroyo had 24 assists and 11 digs in the win.

In a match that lasted two hours and twenty-eight minutes, there were a staggering 67 tied scores and 32 lead changes. The Rams hit .235 as a team while the Celts hit .203 for the contest. Wesleyan had seven team blocks to the Lady Celts four.

In the match versus Wayland Baptist, the Lady Rams got down 7-2 in the first set before battling back to tie it and 8-8. Wesleyan kept it close throughout the rest of the first set but took a 25-21 loss.

The second set was also close throughout, but a late four point rally pushed the Lady Rams to a 25-22 set two win.

Texas Wesleyan rolled in the start of set three, jumping out to a 7-1 lead. The Lady Pioneers scraped at the lead and took a 15-12 lead capped by an Alissa Mitchell service ace. The Lady Rams charged back with help from Hendee and a few Lady Pioneer errors to tie the set at 25-25. The two teams jockeyed for the edge but Texas Wesleyan found a way to pull out a 28-26 third set win.

With the 2-1 match advantage the Lady Rams took control of the fourth set and found themselves with a 20-15 lead. Wayland Baptist again took advantage of some costly Lady Rams miscues and went on a 10-1 run to win 25-21 and force a game five.

The two teams played each other close for half of the fifth set, but Wayland Baptist seem to wear the Lady Rams down and escaped with a 15-11 set, and a 3-2 match win.

“We played solid in both matches today,” said head coach Christy Clawson. “We just need to reduce the opponents runs, take control when we have the lead, and focus on eliminating the mental mistakes.”

Buell and Finley led the Lady Rams with 13 kills each. Rangel had 26 digs in the loss. Dominguez followed with 25 digs and 24 assists, and Hendee finish with 11 kills and 23 digs for Wesleyan.

The Lady Rams continue in day two of the Wesleyan-Hughes Classic with a matchup against Lubbock Christian at 11:00am and Huston-Tillotson at 3:00pm in the Sid Richardson Center