STEPHENVILLE – The Tarleton volleyball team put together a complete performance on Saturday afternoon in Wisdom Gym, defeating the California Baptist Lancers 3-1, (25-22, 20-25, 25-14, 25-18).
The Texans (11-12, 3-5 WAC) picked up their third Western Athletic Conference win of the season, joining seven other schools in the conference, including CBU (8-10, 3-4 WAC), with three wins.
“I’m super proud of this team,” said coach Mary Schindler. “We put everything together today. We hit well, passed well and played good defense against a really talented squad.”
Tarleton hit .305 as a team and held CBU to .213 hitting as the Texans saw three players finish with double-digit kills. Megan Haynes paced the Texans with 14 kills on .294 hitting, followed by Grayson Schirpik who posted 12 kills and seven digs. Ailie Hair added 11 kills on a team-high .625 hitting to pair with four blocks. Six of Hair’s 11 kills came in the first set.
“She (Hair) is someone who has worked hard over the last few weeks on being able to get the ball in transition rather than just serve and receive,” said Schindler. “She is very dynamic offensively and it’s great to see her perform at a high level.”
CBU held all the momentum early in set one when they took the 5-1 lead early and stretched it to an 11-5 lead on a Chandler Gorman kill. The Texans were unfazed as they instantly responded with a 5-0 run that saw two kills from Hair, a kill from Haynes and one from Breanna McDonough to cut the CBU lead to one. The teams exchanged points down the stretch and It came to a 21-21 tie. Tarleton scored four of the next six points including kills from Haynes and McDonough, and two attack errors from the Lancers helped Tarleton earn the set one victory.
The Lancers hit .400 in set two and answered with a set win to tie the match at one. In set three, the Texans defense went to another level, holding CBU to -0.056 hitting and just 14 points. With Tarleton leading 8-7, they went on a 6-0 run to pull away and take the 14-7 lead. CBU never got the set to within five points from that point on and the Texans cruised to the 2-1 lead.
Set four was close up until the midway point. With the set sitting at a 15-15 tie, Tarleton outscored CBU 10-3 the rest of the way with two separate 4-0 runs to put their stamp on the match.
Megan Hodges had 25 assists and eight digs, while McDonough landed eight kills and four blocks. Ana Costas led with 16 digs.
“We needed that win,” Schindler said. “The trip to Utah took a lot out of us and to immediately play two matches after that was tough. I’m proud of this team’s resilience to come back and get a hard-fought win to close the week out.”
Tarleton will hit the road for its next match, taking on Abilene Christian at Moody Coliseum on Saturday at 1 p.m. The match will be streamed on ESPN+.
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