STEPHENVILLE, Texas – The Texas A&M-Kingsville volleyball team fell 3-2 (25-12, 20-25, 25-12, 24-26, 12-15) to Cameron in the first round of the Lone Star Conference Tournament in Wisdom Gym Thursday evening.
"We had the advantage in the major stat categories," said head coach
Tanya Allen. "It came down to a couple of momentum swings and us not reading some tips very well."
The Javelinas dropped to 19-15 overall while the Aggies improved to 17-9 on the season and will take on the winner of Eastern New Mexico/Tarleton State contest.
Krystal Faison recorded her 20th double-double of the season with a match-high 17 kills and 15 digs. Adding 15 kills with a .286 attack percentage was
Valarie Moehrig.
Nearly recording a triple-double was
Casey Klobedans with 47 assists, 15 digs and eight kills while hitting a match best .615. For the year, Klobedans totaled 1,283 assists to finish second on the program's single-season list.
Defensively,
Madison Brabham was credited with six blocks and Klobedans contributed five rejections.
Brett Zaccardo finished with 22 digs to give her 637 this season, the second most by a Javelina, and
Ashley Bukowski recorded 12 digs.
Other than being tied after the first two points, the Javelinas led the entire first set. Moehrig recorded four kills and both Brabham and Klobedans were credited with three blocks each in the stanza.
CU came alive offensively in the second set with 21 kills and hit .354 compared to TAMUK's 12 kills and .211 attack percentage to tie the match at one set apiece.
The Aggies opened the third set with a kill from Kayla Allen but the Javelinas then went on a 6-1 run capped off by a service ace from
Abbey Wells. The Javelinas took the final six points in the stanza with Faison recording three kills.
Down 7-4 in the fourth, the Blue and Gold scored six straight to take a three-point lead. A 6-1 scoring burst allowed CU to come back and take a 15-14 lead. Neither team could pull away until the Aggies got back-to-back kills at the end and force a decisive fifth set.
TAMUK jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the fifth after a kill by Faison. Nine of the next 12 points went in favor of CU to force a Javelina timeout down two. A kill courtesy of Bukowski cut the Hogs' deficit to 12-11 but the Aggies finished the stanza on a 3-1 run.
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