Kingsville - The Kingsville volleyball team ended the Lone Star Conference Challenge by getting back in the win column with a four-set win over the UT Tyler Patriots in a high-scoring slugfest Saturday afternoon.

After a five-set loss to Texas Woman's' on Thursday, which snapped a four-match win streak, The Javelinas (8-3, 0-0 LSC) offense hit a spectacular percentage in a win that saw two of the match's four sets go to extra points. The team hit .345, led by junior Kendall Harrington and senior Meghan Steifer, who each had 15 kills. 

Behind the pair, however, it was offense by committee once again, as a total of five Javelinas had double-digit kills. Harrington's 15 kills came on .414, while senior Ayanna Jackson had 14 on a ridiculous .522. 

"I thought we did a very good job of attacking the ball out of system," Head Coach Tanya Allen Gonzales said. "I think we were struggling in serve receive a little bit and we took really good swings out of the system and I think that helped keep our offense rolling."

Serve and serve receive was certainly a big issue for both teams, who collected 26 combined service errors - 16 of them coming from Javelinas. Allen-Gonzales said it was likely part of the game plan for both squads to serve tough in a match that featured some of the LSC's best offenses.

"We are both hitting for very high percentages with a lot of kills, so I think part of your defensive plan is to serve tough, cause if you get them out of system, it's going to make it a lot easier," Allen Gonzales said. "I can almost guarantee you their side was saying the same thing we were: you've got to serve tough because if you serve lame, they're just going to get a kill."

The match began with what would become a trend for the Javelinas: a display of resilience. The home team was down as many as five, 21-16, late in the first set, but clawed their way back. A 6-1 run, keyed by the service of junior S Elisa Carli, got the team back into the set, which was a back-and-forth battle from there.

It happened again in the second set, where TAMUK didn't grab its first lead until 17-16. From there, six straight points, again sparked by Carli's serve, put the Eagles in the rear view. 

One more time in the match's final set, Kingsville found itself in a battle. No team led by more than three points the entire set, and the Javelinas needed late-set magic, including two massive kills from junior RS/S Rylan Pollard, to force extra points. From there, it was freshman Tayae Garcia's turn to find something magical, as she doubled the team's ace total on the finals points of the game, dropping in back-to-back aces to seal the victory.

"I think the resilience part is really just effort level," Allen-Gonzalez said. "I think when a team isn't being resilient, they lack a little effort, so it's our goal as a coaching staff to really instill that and to really stress that."

The Javelinas will be back on the road this week with trips to St. Mary's and Texas A&M-International on Wednesday and Saturday respectively.
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