Jackson, TN - The Texas A&M-Kingsville volleyball team finished its opening weekend 3-1 after splitting its two second-day matches, beating Drury in four sets before falling in five sets to Arkansas-Fort Smith.
After day-one wins over Harding and Lane College on Friday, Kingsville will take a strong start to its season home to the SPEC for the Javelina Volleyball Classic next weekend, a tournament, to which they will play host, that will see TAMUK play four matches across three days of competition.
"I'm proud of the team's performance in this tournament," Head Coach
Tanya Allen-Gonzalez said. "I think it was a great start to our season."
Amidst the wins, four different Javelinas set statistical records, as sophomore Libero Tayae Garcia and senior setter
Elisa Carli combined for 20 aces, the most by a Javelina duo through the first three matches of a season since at least 2012, while senior right side hitters
Kendall Harrington and
Rylan Pollard's 73 kills were the most over the same span by a Javelina since 2021.
"I'm proud and excited for the girls breaking records," Allen-Gonzalez said. "And, as a coach, I'm even more excited to turn those individual records into team wins."
In addition to Pollard's fourth career triple double on Friday, she flirted with her fifth on Saturday, posting an unreal 21 kills, 17 assists, and nine digs against UAFS, following up a 16-kill, 12-assist, four-dig performance in the team's win over Drury Saturday morning. She finished the weekend with 60 total kills (3.53/s) on an amazing .306 attack percentage.
Junior defensive specialist
Monique Gonzalez also provided a key spark for the Javelinas, putting together a stellar weekend in the back row, posting a pair of double-digit dig matches (12, 14) on Saturday, keeping crucial rallies alive for Kingsville. Carli, TAMUK's main setter, led the team in assists in both of Saturday's matches, putting up 20 against Drury before posting 25 against UAFS.
Much like the first day of competition, the Javelinas had to fight hard in both of their matches on day two. The team took both of the first two sets in back-and-forth battles with Drury in an early-morning joust with the Panthers, falling just short (22-25) in set three, before responding with a 25-21 win to close out the match in four.
TAMUK's night cap against UAFS was even tighter, with each of the first two sets, one going to each team, finishing 25-22. The teams then traded sets three and four, forcing a tiebreaking fifth set that saw UAFS pull away late, securing the win and handing Kingsville its first loss of the season.
The Javelinas will be back in action Thursday night for its first home match of the season, playing against Southern Arkansas at 6:30 p.m. in the second game of the Javelina Volleyball Classic.
