Friday, October 3, 2014
DENTON, TEXAS – Friday night saw the Eastern New Mexico volleyball team's winning streak end at two as they fell 3-0 (25-8, 29-27, 25-17) to Texas Woman's in the Kitty Magee Arena.
The Zias fell to 7-7 overall and 2-4 in the Lone Star Conference while the Pioneers are now 10-6 and 5-2 in conference play.
TWU had command of the first set the entire way as they held Eastern to only seven kills while recording 11 themselves with a .357 attack percentage. Defensively, the Pioneers had six blocks and were not rejected by the Zias.
ENMU scored the first four points of the second set with a kill apiece coming from senior outside hitter
Lindsey Barron (Mandeville, La./Central Arkansas) and junior right side hitter
Talaitupu Faumui (West Jordan, Utah/Western Texas College). Sophomore outside hitter
Courtney Lawson (Rio Rancho, N.M./V. Sue Cleveland HS) recorded her first of two service aces in the match as well.
After TWU cut the lead to 10-7, the Zias went on a 4-0 run capped off by a kill from Lawson. The Pioneers fought back to pull to within four at 19-15 but Eastern won the next three points to go back on top by seven.
TWU responded by winning eight straight points to go up 23-22. The Zias kept fighting and had match point twice but recorded a service error and were blocked on an attack attempt. A rare triple block by the Pioneers' Katelyn Barnett, Jaqueline Santos and Hillary Shaffer ended the set in their favor 29-27.
Both squads traded the first nine points of the third set as ENMU take a 5-4 advantage following a kill by Lawson. TWU then went on an 8-0 run to take control of the game and eventually the match.
Sophomore outside hitter
Lauren Frye (Amissville, Va./Highland School) led the Zias with nine and a .286 attack percentage. She, along with senior middle blockers
Agatha Gibbons (Suva, Fiji/New Mexico Military Institute) and
Bree Anna Lucero (Fort Sumner, N.M./Fort Sumner HS) and Lawson, all had a block assist each. Both Barron and Faumui contributed six kills apiece as well.
Both sophomore libero
Lindsay Bost (Rio Rancho, N.M./V. Sue Cleveland HS) and Lawson recorded a match-high 13 digs defensively.
For the Pioneers, Shaffer had a match-best 11 kills to go along with five blocks while Santos added nine kills and four rejections. Elizabeth Pennington recorded a match-high six blocks and .583 attack percentage with seven kills and no errors in 12 attempts.
Eastern finishes the weekend on Saturday at 1 p.m. MT at Texas A&M-Commerce.
For the latest information on Zia volleyball, follow
@ENMUSports on Twitter and visit the official website of ENMU athletics at GoEasternAthletics.com.
