KINGSVILLE, Texas – One month remains in the season before the Texas A&M-Kingsville beach volleyball team will travel to the American Volleyball Coaches Association National Tournament and they'll start that final month of work with two days in Fort Worth, Texas, where they'll battle the No. 9 TCU Horned Frogs on Friday at 11 a.m. before a Saturday that will start with a 9 a.m. match against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks followed by an 11:15 a.m. contest with the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks.
Their last time on the court, the Javelinas staged a comeback from a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, winning the top three flights to take the match. This victory allowed TAMUK to complete the home portion of their schedule with a perfect 5-0 record and they improved to 33-7 all-time at the Javelina Beach Volleyball Courts.
The finishing touches in that come-from-behind victory were applied by seniors Debra Rogers (Tulsa, Okla.) and Shelby Williams (New Braunfels, Texas), who staged their own comeback to win the second flight in three sets. Overall, this tandem owns a team-best mark of 6-2, with one of those wins coming in TAMUK's first matchup against ULM on March 6th.
"Our team kind of laughs," said Williams after her team's win over the Islanders, "because we're pretty opposite. She's tall and very athletic and physical at the net and you can't really say that about me. I'm not a big jumper but everybody on the team knows that I will try my hardest to get to every ball. It's fun playing with her, it's very high-energy and I really enjoy it."
The Javelinas will endure their toughest test on Friday, when they'll take on a TCU squad that is 10-3 and has defeated six ranked teams in 2021. Their list of victims includes No. 12 Florida Atlantic, No. 14 South Carolina and two victories over No. 13 Florida International.
The Horned Frogs have been nearly unbeatable in the top two flights, where the tandems of Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno Mateeva and Hailey Brockett and Olivia Blackburn have combined to go 21-3. Alvarez and Moreno Mateeva started the season by winning nine of their first 10 matches, including a sweep of a pair from No. 11 Stetson. Brockett and Blackburn suffered their only defeat against No. 2 Florida State, which broke an eight-game win streak they'd been on since they were paired together. That run included a sweep in the second flight against No. 10 Grand Canyon.
The Warhawks have bounced back from an 0-5 start to win six of their last eight matches and improve to 7-8. That recent stretch of success started with a narrow, 3-2 victory over the Javelinas on March 6th in which all three matches won by ULM went to three sets. The clinching point in that match came from Abigail Elder and Kayla Gallant, who haven't lost since, a win streak that covers eight consecutive contests.
The Lumberjacks started their season in Kingsville with two wins over the Ottawa Braves sandwiched around two losses to TAMUK, but they're now attempting to shake off a four-match losing streak. SFA's No. 1 pairing of Paige Schieferstein and Corin Evans picked up victories of their team's tilts in Kingsville.
Live stats will be available for all three of the Javelinas' matches in Fort Worth and a recap will be posted on Javelinaathletics.com at the end of each day. Fans can stay up-to-date with everything related to Javelina beach volleyball during the season by following @JavelinaBeach and @JavelinaSports on Twitter and Instagram, liking the Javelina Sports Facebook page, subscribing to the Javelina Athletics YouTube Channel and visiting Javelinathletics.com. Watch your Javelinas live today on the Javelina Sports Network sponsored by Mendoza's Pharmacy.
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