SEGUIN, Texas – A 3-0 victory over Schreiner University to close out the regular season was just what the Southwestern University women's volleyball team needed in order to wrap up the second seed heading into next weekend's Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament.
Southwestern (16-10, 12-4 SCAC) took down Schreiner (11-18, 4-11 SCAC) 25-17, 25-20, 25-23 thanks to yet another blistering hot performance inside Texas Lutheran's Memorial Gymnasium by Riley Brantley.
One day after having a match with double figure kills with no attack errors, Brantley was nearly flawless against Schreiner as she tallied 11 kills on 17 attempts with just a single attack error for a .588 percentage.
Brantley would also add eight digs and three block assists for a stellar all-around outing.
Holding a 9-8 lead in the first set, Southwestern went on a 6-0 run thanks to a hitting clinic Brantley put on that was free of charge as she tallied three kills during the run.
Southwestern would go on another 6-0 run later in the stanza to go up 21-14 and Brantley played a strong part in that run as well with a pair of kills.
The second would be one that Southwestern looked like it was going to coast to a double-digit margin of victory, but the Mountaineers clawed their way back into it before ultimately falling 25-20.
Schreiner would use the momentum that it had built in the second set to race out to a 17-12 lead over the Pirates, but head coach Don Flora's crew would have nothing to do with a set loss as they stormed back with a 13-6 run to win the set and match.
Romo paced the Pirates with a 15-assist, 13-dig double-double while fellow setter Annika Flora added nine assists.
White narrowly missed a double-double of her own as she collected eight kills and a team-high 15 digs.
Geneva Nedrow had a good result from her libero position with 14 digs and three aces.
Versus Colorado College & Trinity
Christina Kuras and Riley Brantley combined to hit at a blistering .515 clip in a Southwestern University women's volleyball 3-0 sweep of Colorado College on Saturday morning.
Southwestern (15-10, 11-4 SCAC) also battled nationally ranked Trinity University in a five-set thriller before falling 3-2.
Match 1 – Southwestern 3 Colorado College 0 (25-19, 25-19, 25-22)
Tied at 3-3 in the first set, Southwestern got a point thanks to a service error by the Tigers then Geneva Nedrow served the next 10 serves before the Pirates gave up another point to take a 13-3 lead.
Colorado College, however, did not go quietly into the night and fought back to get to as close as 23-19, but a pair of errors by the Tigers gave Southwestern a 25-19 first set victory.
Southwestern put on a hitting clinic in the first stanza going 13-4-34 for a .265 attack percentage while holding Colorado College to just a .162 (13-7-37) clip.
Both teams battled throughout the second set with neither taking control until late in the set when the Pirates built a 19-14 lead that was too much for Colorado College to come back from.
The third set was the Kuras show as the 5-foot-9 sophomore outside hitter from Phoenix, Ariz., went off for seven of her 11 kills on the match and did not record a single hitting error in any of the three sets.
Kuras would finish the match with 11 kills on 18 attempts for a mind-blowing attack percentage of .611.
Brantley may not have put up double-digit kill numbers, but her service game was on point earning four aces in the victory to go along with seven kills, five block assists and three digs/ Her .400 hitting percentage on seven kills with one error in 15 attempts also helped out tremendously as Colorado College could not key on Kuras the entire time she was in the match.
"This week of training and team connection was at a high level and that vibe transferred into a clean and complete 3-0 win over a quality Colorado College program," said Southwestern head coach Don Flora. "We handled things from behind the service well today. The pressure from the service really helped in the big picture for the team blocking wise with eight total blocks. We had a number of quality touches and then turned a few into quality stuffs."
In addition to Brantley's five block assists, Kuras, Alex Husen and Lily McWhorter added two block assists each to go along with the one tallied by Andie Valenzuela. McWhorter and Valenzuela would also add a solo block each.
Claire Romo (18 assists) and Annika Flora (14 assists) once again paced the offense by getting the ball to the right attacker at the right time, which could not have happened without a strong defensive front that put up 52 digs including 12 each from Nedrow and Emma White.
Match 2 – Trinity 3 Southwestern 2 (25-21. 25-19, 16-25, 24-26, 15-12)
The result may not have been what the Southwestern faithful had wanted for their team, but the crowd inside Memorial Gymnasium on the campus of Texas Lutheran saw a battle that proved that Trinity is vulnerable to defeat despite the Trinity finding a way to win in the end in five sets.
White and Kuras led the way for the Pirates on offense with 17 and 12 kills, respectively, as Southwestern went toe-to-toe with one of the best team in all of the NCAA Division III ranks.
The five-set victory for Trinity (22-5, 15-0 SCAC) was the first time in the entire SCAC slate that Trinity had been on the brink of defeat and in a fifth set.
Down 2-0 in sets, Southwestern finally got its attack game going the way it went in the day's earlier match as the Pirates hit 11-2-29 for a .310 attack percentage in the third en route to a 25-16 set win.
Both teams attacked at a .196 clip in the fourth set, but Southwestern was able to eek a 26-24 victory.
The fifth and final set would unfortunately go to Trinity, but the confidence boost that Southwestern gained from being able to hang tough and play with one of the best in the country will help heading into the conference tournament next week.
Romo and Flora played well from their setter positions and posted 27 and 24 assists, respectively, while Nedrow added a match-high 23 digs.
White completed a kill-dig double-double as she added 11 digs to her 17 kills.
Brantley added a strong all-around match with eight kills, four digs, one block solo and three block assists.
Romo had another stellar outing on the service line with three aces to go along with the two each from Flora and White.
"This match had numerous ebbs and flows as any elite college volleyball match will have throughout five quality sets of volleyball," said Coach Flora
"The competitive fire and competitive grit continue to shine through as this team of strong and powerful women battled in every facet of the match," added Coach Flora. "We played a lot of high-end volleyball throughout the entire match. Matches like these come down to the small margins in crunch time. We handled crunch time well in set four, but we needed that one big play or one more momentum kill to complete the reverse sweep tonight. This team still has goals and plenty of work to do. We look forward to the next steps and the next opportunities ahead of us this season."
NEXT UP
The all-around team play will need to continue as the Pirates travel to Colorado Springs, Colo., for the SCAC postseason tournament with the winner earning the automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division III national tournament.
Southwestern earned a first-round bye with the two-seed and will play the winner of Friday's second match between Colorado College and the University of St. Thomas. The Tigers and the Celts will face off at 1 p.m. MDT with the winner taking on Southwestern later that night at 6 p.m. MDT.