Regular Season Finale Ends in Heartbreak for Volleyball

KINGSVILLE, Texas – Both teams left everything on the court in a tough, back-and-forth battle but the St. Mary's Volleyball team was on the short end in five sets, 25-23, 19-25, 22-25, 25-23, 13-15 at Texas A&M Kingsville in the team's final regular season match of the year.
 
The two teams combined for 241 digs and 25 blocks over the five sets, showing tons of grit on defense. The Rattlers (14-13, 10-6 Lone Star Conference) won the digs battle with 124, coming within two of the all-time school record of 126 by the 2007 team at UT Permian Basin.
 
Freshman Alyssa Koehl (New Braunfels, Texas) powered the defense with a career-high 29 digs, while junior Brianna Morris-Worth (Yukon, Okla.) shattered her career-high with 24 digs. Koehl's previous high was 25 digs against both ENMU and OC earlier this season, while Morris-Worth entered the night with a career-high of 15 digs from Sept. 2 at Central Oklahoma. Koehl also had a career-best eight assists, narrowly missing her first career double-double.
 
Freshman Abbey Stiffler (York, Pa.) also had a career-night with highs in both assists (29) and digs (20), recording the first 20-20 of her Gold & Blue career. Fellow setter Cali Nims (Corpus Christi, Texas) chipped in her 10th double-double of the season with 22 assists and 12 digs.
 
Landri Withers, a freshman from Stephenville, Texas, recorded her seventh double-double of the year, leading the Rattlers with a career-high 19 kills and six blocks as well as adding 15 digs. While they didn't quite make it to double digits, both freshmen Dani Gray (San Antonio) and Laurene Robinson (Bedford, Texas) also posted career-highs in digs with nine and eight, respectively. Robinson also smoked a career-best 13 kills, bettering her previous high of nine and senior Sadie Hough (Cleburne, Texas) chipped in a season-best 14 kills and hit a match-high .458.
 
In addition to the second-most digs in school history, the Rattlers were only aced twice in the five sets, taking 105 receptions with only the two errors.
 
The Rattlers came out on fire in the first set, jumping out to a 16-6 lead, but the Javelinas (19-8, 11-3 LSC) answered with a big run of their own to close within one, 22-21, but StMU held on for the first set win off a combined block by Hough and Withers for the 25-23 score. Stiffler had 10 of her 20 digs in the first set alone.
 
There were six ties and four lead changes in the second set, the last tie at 16-16 before the Javelinas went on a 9-3 run for the 25-19 victory. TAMUK led most of the third set, including three six-point advantages but the Rattlers closed the gap to two at 24-22 before the home team took a 2-1 lead with the 25-22 tally.
 
The clubs went back-and-forth throughout the fourth set with four more ties and three lead changes. Tied at 21-21, Robinson recorded back-to-back kills for the Rattlers and Koehl served an ace as the scoreboard read 24-21. TAMUK scored the next two but the Rattlers forced a hitting error to extend the night to a fifth-and-deciding set.
 
The final stanza saw another four ties and two lead changes, the last tie at 7-7. The Javelinas stretched their advantage to three, 14-11, but StMU staved off two match points with consecutive kills by Dallasstar Johnson (San Antonio) and Lindsey Ogle (Houston) before a TAMUK kill ended the 2:38 battle.
 
St. Mary's awaits the end of the regular season this weekend for the remainder of the league to find out which seed and where they will go for the Lone Star Conference Championship. Stay tuned to rattlerathletics.com for more information.