The Texas A&M-Kingsville volleyball team (5-17) bounced back from a disappointing loss earlier in the day to Southeastern Oklahoma to beat Texas A&M-Commerce (11-12) in five games in the final match of the Lone Star Conference Crossover Volleyball Tournament. The Javelinas won games one and three, 30-25, 30-28, but lost games two and four, 34-32, 30-19. Texas A&M-Kingsville then won the decisive game five 17-15.
Freshman Kristin Chancellor (Bellville) led four Javelinas in double figures in kills with 15. Senior Kara Maughan (Corpus Christi King) had 13, freshman Adina Gray (Corpus Christi Flour Bluff) had 12 and junior Heidi Scheopner (Harlingen South) added 11.
Scheopner (26) and freshman Kirby Krueger (23) combined for 49 assists, while freshman Tara Grier (Poth) had 20 digs to lead the Javelinas.
After posting just 14 kills against 10 errors in the game four loss to the Lions, the Javelinas fell behind 4-1 in game five and still trailed 11-8 before going on a 5-0 run to grab their first lead of the game. All five points came on the serve of Krueger.
The Javelinas then had two chances to serve out the match at 14-13 and 15-14, but the Lions battled back to tie the score each time.
With the scored tied at 15, Maughan won the match with back-to-back kills.
After losing seven consecutive matches, the Javelinas have split their last four, all against LSC foes.
“This was a very important win against a very good team,” said Javelina head coach Jane Kieschnick. “It’s important to win a long match like that. We felt like we should have beaten Southeastern Oklahoma, but we didn’t execute. We need to pass better after we fell behind in game five. We pulled from within to get back into it.”
The Javelinas host Angelo State Thursday night at the Steinke Center.
