Boxscore

PORTALES, New Mexico – The Lady Buffs of West Texas A&M split the opening two sets before using an 11-3 run to end the third frame in a four set win (25-20, 19-25, 25-22, 25-23) over the rival Zias of Eastern New Mexico on Tuesday night at Greyhound Arena in Portales, New Mexico. The Lady Buffs move to 20-3 (10-0 LSC) while the loss drops Eastern New Mexico to 8-11 (3-7 LSC) on the season.
 
The win lifts the Lady Buffs to their 11^th straight victory this season as well as they 32^nd consecutive Lone Star Conference match dating back to the 2012 season. The win also lifts WT to 63-11 all-time against Eastern New Mexico with the Lady Buffs taking the past 18 meetings including the last nine meetings at Greyhound Arena.
 
The first set saw the Zias jump out early as the registered four of the first seven points of the match before a block by Lexi Davis and Lauren Bevan sparked a WT run highlighted by a pair of ENMU attack errors and kills by Davis and Kameryn Hayes to force a Zias timeout at 8-4, ENMU fought back to cut the lead to 8-6 before Kyli Schulz found Hayes on the outside again followed by a pair of Zia ball handling errors to force another timeout at 14-10. Cori Haley registered a pair of kills after the break to continue the WT run followed by a Jessica Johnson finish in the middle to make it 18-14, Eastern went on a run of their own to cut the lead to 19-18 before a Schulz kill on the setter dump off of a Lauren Britten dig and an ENMU attack error made it 21-18. Schulz found Sydney Harlan on the outside followed by a pair of Davis kills to force set point, Eastern answered with a pair of kills before Schulz found Hayes on the outside to end the frame at 25-20.
 
The Zias came out firing to open up the second set as they scored the first three points of the frame before a Johnson kill sparked a WT run to give the Lady Buffs the 8-6 lead, Eastern responded once again as they used a block to re-take the lead at 9-8 followed by a Zias service ace to force a WT timeout at 10-8. The Lady Buffs made a run of their own after the break as they used kills by Bevan and Haley to force an ENMU timeout with the Zias leading 14-13, four straight ENMU points after the break ran the lead to 18-13 followed by the teams trading points to make it 21-15 on a Zias attack error, the teams traded blows again before a Hayes kill and a Bevan service ace forced an ENMU timeout with the 22-18 lead. Eastern answered with a pair of kills after the break to force set point at 24-18 followed by an ENMU attack error before the Zias took the second set on a ball handling error by the Lady Buffs at 25-19.
 
The third set saw the Lady Buffs come out hot as they used four kills by Hayes and a Johnson finish to go along with a Zias ball handling error to force an early ENMU timeout at 7-4, the Zias responded after the timeout as they cut the WT lead to 10-8 to force a Lady Buffs timeout. Eastern fought back to tie the match at 12-12 before a pair of ENMU kills and a WT error gave the Zias the 15-12 lead to force the Lady Buffs second timeout of the set, the teams traded points as ENMU ran their lead to 17-13 before a Marisa Ochoa kill, the Zias answered with a pair of kills before Hayes found Haley for the finish to spark a WT run that would force an ENMU timeout at 19-17. A pair of Johnson kills tied the frame at 19-19 followed by a Zias attack error and a Haley kill from Hayes to make it 21-19, the teams traded points before two ENMU points tied the match again at 22-22 followed by a Davis kill to give WT the 23-22 lead. An Eastern ball handling error brought set point followed by Schulz finding Bevan on the outside to end the frame at 25-22.
 
The Lady Buffs carried over their momentum from the end of the third set as they used a pair of Johnson kills followed by an ENMU attack error and a Haley kill to race out to a quick 7-3 lead to force a Zias timeout, WT continued to capitalize on Eastern mistakes as they used a setting error to run the lead to 9-4 followed by block by Bevan and Davis to force another ENMU timeout at 10-4. Eastern responded with four quick points to make it 10-8 followed by the teams trading points as WT continued to hold the small lead before a Johnson kill sparked another WT run to make it 15-12, Ochoa continued the stretch with a kill from Schulz before ENMU responded again with three straight points to force a WT timeout with the Lady Buffs leading 18-15. The Zias used three straight points to tie the match at 18-18 followed by the teams trading blows, Bevan registered three kills over the next four points to make it 22-21 followed by a pair of ENMU points before Davis and Johnson found the open court to force match point, the Lady Buffs claimed the win on a block by Johnson and Bevan for the 25-23 win.
 
The Lady Buffs were led offensively by Hayes with 12 kills and 21 assists for the double-double while Johnson also tallied 12 kills in the match, Davis had 11 on the night while Bevan had nine kills and five digs in the match. Schulz led the Lady Buffs with 24 assists while Britten was the only WT player with double-digit digs with 13. West Texas A&M hit .203 as a team with 46 kills on 143 attempts with 27 attack errors to go along with 49 assists, 59 digs and five total blocks on the night.
 
Eastern New Mexico was led by Courtney Lawson with 13 kills to lead all players followed by Lauren Frye with 12 and Agatha Gibbons with eight, Kennedi Catano led the Zias with 22 assists on the night while Andrea Aguilar led all players with 16 digs. ENMU hit .177 as a team with 49 kills on 141 swings with 24 attack errors to go along with 46 assists, 50 digs and nine total blocks on the night.
 
The Lady Buffs return to action on Saturday afternoon as they host the Javelinas of Texas A&M-Kingsville with first serve set for 2 p.m. at the WTAMU Fieldhouse in Canyon. Saturday will also see former Lady Buffs return to The Box for the 50^th Anniversary celebration, there will be a pig roast outside of the gym starting at noon and a reception for former players and fans following the match. The Javelinas (12-7, 4-4 LSC) fell in straight sets to the Falcons of UT-Permian Basin on Tuesday night in non-conference action in Odessa.