Texans bested by UTA to close homestand

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STEPHENVILLE – The Tarleton Texan volleyball team fell to UT Arlington in a three set sweep (26-28, 16-25, 19-25) inside Wisdom Gym on Saturday in the two teams’ first meeting as Western Athletic Conference foes.

Tarleton (8-10, 0-4 WAC) played UTA (11-4, 3-0 WAC) to extra points in the first set, as the teams went back and forth throughout. Joselyn Roberson landed five kills to lead Tarleton in the set.

With Tarleton down 18-15, UTA helped the Texans with two straight errors and Emma Burke landed a kill to tie the game at 18. The teams traded the next eight points to bring it to 22-22. UTA outscored Tarleton 6-4 down the stretch to take the set.

Roberson led the Texans offensively with nine kills on career-high .316 hitting. Burke followed with eight kills and Ailie Hair landed eight kills of her own on .429 hitting to go with three service aces. Ana Costas paced Tarleton with 12 digs and Megan Hodges assisted on 28 Texan points.

Tarleton hit .104 as a team while UTA hit .290. The Mavericks had 13 blocks to the Texans four.

Tarleton got off to a 5-0 lead in set two and looked to have claimed all the momentum back as Hair and Burke each landed kills and Costas had a service ace on the way to the early lead. UTA stormed back to take a 9-7 lead off a 7-0 run and did not relinquish the lead again through the set.

Set three saw plenty of lead changes. Tarleton tied it at 16 when Roberson landed a kill off an assist from Hodges. UTA managed to outscore Tarleton 9-3 to close the match out. The Mavericks’ Brianna Ford led all players with 14 kills on .462 hitting. Ava Burroughs finished with six blocks.

The Texans have now lost seven straight matches and will look to get back in the winning column when they travel to St. George, Utah, to play Utah Tech on Thursday at 7 p.m. CT.

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