HOUSTON, Texas— McNeese volleyball dropped its final match of the Rice Invitational to Illinois (2-2), a team that received votes in this week's AVCA poll. The Cowgirls fell in straight sets (25-14, 25-11, 25-22) Saturday afternoon.
McNeese (0-6) will return to action next weekend with three more road matches beginning with a match at UL-Monroe on Thursday, at Grambling on Friday, and will close out the weekend with a match at Louisiana Tech on Saturday.
Sophomore
Ava Henry led the Cowgirls in kills with seven along with a .357 hitting percent. Henry made two errors in 14 attempts.
Setters
Corynne Hausler and
Megan Grose both ended the match with double figure assists. Hausler dished out a team high 12 while Grose ended with 10. Freshman libero
Sophia Tocmo led the back row, tying her career high with 18 digs.
Illinois had three players with at least 10 kills. Alyssa Aguayo led all players with 12 kills, Paityn Chapman added 11 kills and Tayler DeBoer had 10. DeBoer ended the match with a .625 hitting percent without committing and error in 16 attempts.
Set 1
• Illinois took an early 2-0 lead then kills by
Carli Banks and
Gabbie Maldonado tied the set at two apiece
• Illinois scored the next six points to take an 8-2 lead and never trailed on its way to the first set win
Set 2
• Illinois jumped out to a 4-0 lead before a serving error put the Cowgirls on the board.
• McNeese outscored Illinois 5-2 to pull to within one point (6-5)
• Illinois went on a 9-2 run to take a 15-8 lead at the media timeout
• Illinois took advantage of a few Cowgirl serving errors to take the set for an overall 2-0 match lead
Set 3
• The set was close for the first 12 points before Illinois took a 10-5 lead
• McNeese cut the lead to two points (11-9) on an
Ava Henry kill
• Illinois went on a scoring run to take a 22-17 lead before McNeese called a timeout.
• McNeese went on a run of its own late in the set by scoring four straight points to pull to within two points (23-21)
• McNeese staved off two match points before Illinois won the set and the match on a Cowgirl blocking error.
