SAN ANTONIO — A four-match winning streak has red-hot St. Mary's Volleyball back at .500 — and the Rattlers don't expect to stop there. St. Mary's picked up two big victories Friday, starting with a dominant 3-0 sweep of Oklahoma Panhandle State to improve to 3-2 in Heartland Conference play and to pull to fourth in the league standings — and third in the postseason-tournament chase.
Hours later, the Rattlers (5-5) stormed back from a 2-1 deficit to defeat a talented Texas Woman's squad 3-2 at Bill Greehey Arena.
Melissa Heft enjoyed a career performance for StMU, recording a career-high 28 kills, which tied former All-American Samantha Weber's mark from 2007 for the fifth-most kills by a Rattler in a five-set match.
Victorria Martinez also put her name in another spot in the St. Mary's record book, recording 40 digs for the fourth-highest total by an individual in a five-set match. With her 45 digs on the day (she also tallied five against OPSU), Martinez extended her St. Mary's career digs record, cracking the 2,000 mark with 2,002.
But that wasn't all for St. Mary's, as freshman
Tarine Grace enjoyed a career performance with a career-high 19 digs and a team-high .600 hitting percentage after committing just five errors in 30 total attacks against TWU.
Rachael Scicchitano set the table for St. Mary's attack, logging 38 assists against Texas Woman's.
The victory over OPSU was a team effort, as 15 Rattlers steppe on the court.
Lauren Holman led the way with nine kills, while freshman
MacKenzie Wright added six.
St. Mary's outhit OPSU (0-11) .430-.021 in the dominant showing, and actually led the first set 11-0 before surrendering its first point. The Rattlers won the match 25-10, 25-16, 25-12.
They carried that momentum into the second match, carving out a 25-19 first-set victory against Texas Woman's (8-5). But the Pioneers rallied toward the end of each of the next two sets to bounce back with 26-24 and 25-23 victories, and was appearing to inch closer to closing out the match in the fourth set when they took a 17-14 lead.
But St. Mary's came out of a timeout with three straight points, highlighted by back-to-back kills by Grace that tied the set 17-17. St. Mary's ended winning taking that set in extra points and closing it out in the fifth for the comeback victory, taking the match 25-19, 24-26, 23-25, 27-25, 15-10.
The Rattlers will look to keep their streak going when they take on Newman at 12 p.m. Saturday at Bill Greehey Arena.
