WICHITA FALLS, Texas – The Texas A&M-Kingsville battled tooth-and-nail with Midwestern State Saturday afternoon, but came up just short, 3-2 (22-25, 25-22. 26-28, 25-21, 15-10) in a five-set loss to the Mustangs.
The Javelinas record evens at 6-6 with the loss and they are 0-4 in the Lone Star Conference. Midwestern State moved to 3-9 overall and 1-3 in the league.
In the decisive fifth set, the score was close early as Stephanie Johns pulled the Javs within a point at 7-6 with one of her career-best 12 kills.
The Mustangs, however scored the next three points to take a 10-6 lead. The final two came on attack errors by Giselle Carreon. The Javelinas would not get closer than four points the rest of the way.
The first four sets were tight with neither team winning a set by more than four points.
After the two sides split the opening two sets by matching 25-22 scores, Kingsville took a 2-1 lead with a dramatic 28-26 win in game three. The lead changed hands seven times with the Javs rallying from five points down late as MSU led 23-18. TAMUK fought off two set points to win on a kill by Johns.
Midwestern however forced a game three with a 25-21 win in set four.
Dedra Brown led Kingsville with 19 kills while Kelsey Washington added 18. Kelsee Felux added 10 kills as TAMUK outhit the Mustangs .185 to .179. Bethany Friesenhahn led all players with 4.5 blocks and added a career-best 2 digs. Ali Insell added 23, while Kalinda Graves 16 and Washington 14. Carreon had a career-high 56 assists in her second start of the year.
Beatriz Villalba and Michelle Blount each had 11 kills to lead MSU. Casey Fletcher tied Friesenhahn with a match-high 26 digs, while Shelbi Stewart added 23.
On Friday, the Javs lost 3-1 to Cameron. Brown had a match-high 13 kills, while Washington had 19 digs. Carreon had 31 assists in her first start.
The Javs travel to nationally-ranked Angelo State on Tuesday.