Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
AUSTIN, Texas — Eastern New Mexico’s volleyball team, coming off a pair of home losses to open the Lone Star Conference season, headed to Texas for a pair of LSC crossover matches over the weekend.
Unfortunately, their struggles followed them, as both St. Mary’s and St. Edward’s took home sweeps over the Greyhounds Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The defeats put the Greyhound losing streak at five matches, which the team will try to curb Thursday with a road match against division foe West Texas A&M. That will be followed by a pair of home matches, 6 p.m Friday against Texas Woman’s and noon Saturday against Midwestern State.
Against St. Mary’s (25-21, 25-20, 25-19): The host Rattlers took control of things early with a 6-0 run in the first game to break a 4-4 tie, with two kills by Jasmine Sims and a trio of ENMU offensive miscues.
The Greyhounds battled back to 21-20 off a Julie Tucker kill, bt St. Mary’s scored four of the next five to close it out.
The second set was a battle, with the Rattlers grabbing the advantage with a 6-1 burst fueled by kills from three different Rattlers and a trio of Greyhound attack errors. The Greyhounds held off match point twice before Rachel McDonald put things away with a kill off the Bree Perry assist).
The Greyhounds built a 14-11 lead in the third set, with a 5-1 run including a M’Lee Vinson ace and a Lauren Bresnahan kill. But the Rattlers turned the tables with a 5-0 run featuring two kills each by Sims and KK Payne. Another Bresnahan kill made it 19-18 St. Mary’s before the Rattlers rolled off six of the final seven points.
Nobody reached double digits in kills on either team, but two players had nine (Tucker for ENMU, Shea Slusser for St. Mary’s) and two had eight (Sara Tuioti-Mariner for ENMU, Sims for St. Mary’s). Perry had 34 assists, while Tucker had a match-high six blocks.
Against St. Edward’s (25-17, 25-18, 25-18): A 4-0 burst by ENMU to start the match featured kills from Tucker, Tuioti-Mariner and junior Jasmine Gannon, but the Hilltoppers pulled away with a 15-1 blitz that included three kills each by Maddie Miksch and Melissa McNeil.
The Greyhounds opened the second set with a 6-2 advantage thanks to a pair of Gracelyn Stubbs kills, but St. Edward’s clawed their way back in until they took control with a 7-1 run fueled by a pair of Katarina Mendez kills. The Hilltoppers pushed things to 23-15, and survived a small Greyhound run before getting kills from Kaitlyn Krafka and Laura Doocy.
The third set also opened with a Greyhound lead on a Gannon kil, but the Hilltoppers never trailed by more than one the entire game and build a 23-16 advantaged on a late 6-1 burst. Mendez had back-to-back kills to close out the run.
Gannon had nine kills to lead the Greyhounds, while Mendez led all players with 12 for the Hilltoppers. Emily Tran had 21 assists for St. Edward’s, just topping Rae Sapiga’s 20 for the Green and Silver. Vinson had a match-high 17 digs for the Greyhounds.
