Boxscore
CANYON, Texas – The #20 Lady Buffs of West Texas A&M started fast and never looked back on Tuesday night as they registered their 26
th consecutive Lone Star Conference victory with a sweep over the Zias of Eastern New Mexico (25-16, 25-18, 25-14) at the WTAMU Fieldhouse "The Box" in Canyon, Texas. The Lady Buffs move to 7-2 (2-0 LSC) while the Zias fall to 4-5 (0-2 LSC) on the season.
"Excited with how we competed tonight, you can tell that we're still making the early season mistakes that go along with a young team but there were flashes of good throughout the night" said WT head coach
Jason Skoch "We hit the road again for three big matches again this weekend, it seems to calm some nerves when we can get out of our comfort zone and play some different teams early in the year and we as the coaching staff get to see what kind of road team we're going to be later in the year."
The Lady Buffs came out swinging in the opening set as they used a pair of blocks by
Lauren Bevan and
Leah Mayer to take a 5-1 lead into an early Zias timeout, WT continued to roll after the break as the Lady Buff defense registered two more blocks while capitalizing on a pair of ENMU attack errors to force another Zias timeout at 11-3. Eastern would go on a run of their own after the timeout as they cut the lead to 11-9 before the Lady Buffs responded to run their lead to as much as eight points at 22-15, WT ended the set with a 3-1 run as
Kyli Schulz found
Kameryn Hayes for the 25-16 decision.
WT started off the second set on a hot streak as they took the 3-0 lead on a
Jessica Johnson service ace before the Zias responded to take the 6-5 lead,
Leah Mayer tied the match with a kill on the slide play as the teams continued to trade blows before back-to-back kills by
Cori Haley and an ENMU attack error forced a Zias timeout with the Lady Buffs leading 12-10. Johnson continued her run at the service line as a WT block followed by a Bevan kill forced ENMU's second timeout of the set at 14-10, WT continued to add to their lead as a Hayes service ace made it 21-14 before an
Aspen Sanders ace three points later ran the lead to 23-15. Eastern registered three quick points before a Johnson kill on the slide and an ENMU ball handling error ended the set at 25-18.
The third set saw the two teams trade the opening six points of the frame before kills by Mayer and Hayes followed by an ENMU attack error forced a Zias timeout with WT leading 6-3, the Lady Buffs continued their run after the timeout as they used three more Zia attack errors along with a Hayes kill to force Eastern's last timeout at 10-3. The Lady Buffs stretched their lead to as much as 12 points at 23-11 before an ENMU error forced match point, ENMU responded with three straight points before a Zias service error ended the match at 25-14.
The Lady Buffs were led offensively by Hayes with 12 kills and a match high 26 assists for the double-double followed by Bevan and Johnson with 11 each, Schulz dished out 16 assists on the night while
Lauren Britten led all players with 18 digs. WT hit .411 as a team with 50 kills on 95 attempts with 11 errors while tallying 44 assists, 42 digs and five blocks on the night.
Eastern New Mexico was led by Lindsay Barron with 10 kills followed by Lauren Frye with eight and Courtney Lawson with seven, Kennedi Catano led the team with 17 assists while Andrea Aguilar registered nine digs on the night. The Zias hit .208 as a team with 34 kills on 96 attempts with 14 attack errors to go along with 32 assists, 28 digs and six blocks on the night.
The Lady Buffs return to action this weekend as they travel to Lebanon, Illinois to take part in the McKendree Classic at the Statham Center. WT will start off the weekend on Friday night against Quincy at 7 p.m. followed by Saturday matchups with Truman State (3 p.m.) and the host Bearcats (6:30 p.m.). Live stats and video will be available for all three WT matches, visit the volleyball schedule page for more information at GoBuffsGo.com.
