SEGUIN, Texas -- The Texas Lutheran volleyball team closed their non-conference slate by splitting the first day of the 2026 TLU Invitational - beating Schreiner 3-2, Saturday morning before falling to Dickinson in five sets Saturday evening at Memorial Gymnasium.
Texas Lutheran improved to 14-4 after a gutsy performance to take down Schreiner, 3-2 (19-25, 26-24, 25-20, 19-25, 15-10) in the back end of this season's home-and-home between the two squads. Ava Search (Richmond/Needville) led the team with her fifth double-double of the season with 15 kills and 24 digs to go with five blocks and two aces.
Juniors Nadia Dunn (Houston/Pearland) and Zaria Solis (Burnet/Burnet) also tallied double-digit kills with 14 and 11 respectively. Ella Waterbury (Buda/Johnson) registered a career-high 28 assists while Kieryn Adams (Schulenberg/Schulenberg) led the team with 28 digs.
Texas Lutheran dropped the first set 25-19. TLU started the match with a 6-1 run and carried a 15-12 lead into the media timeout before the Mountaineers swung the momentum to take the set behind a .239 hitting percentage and three aces.
The Bulldogs evened the match at one (26-24) as four kills each from Search and Dunn led the Bulldogs.
The third set saw the Bulldogs gradually pull away to win to take a 2-1 lead behind a 25-20 set victory as Dunn led the charge with five kills.
Schreiner was able to stay alive, winning the fourth set 25-19 as they limited the Bulldogs to .066 hitting percentage.
The two teams traded points to start the decisive fifth set before the Bulldogs closed the match on an 8-3 run to claim their first win over the Mountaineers since 2024.
TLU attempted to stretch their win streak to nine but came up short, falling to the Dickinson Red Devils, 3-2 (25-11, 22-25, 25-19, 15-25, 13-15), in a first-time matchup between the two programs.
Zaria Solis led the team with a career-high 16 kills and posted seven digs and two blocks. Nadia Dunn (Houston/Pearland) finished with 14 kills, hitting .364 in the match. Ava Search added eight kills and a team-high 19 digs, while Xandria Johnson (Brownsville/Rivera Early College) contributed five kills and three blocks.
The Bulldogs grabbed an early lead in the match with a 25-11 win in the opening set. Dunn and Solis were phenomenal with six kills each.
Dickinson responded with a 25-20 win in the second set.
The third set was reminiscent of the first as the Bulldogs started the set with a 9-2 run and never looked back to take a 2-1 lead with a 25-19 set victory.
Dickinson came back and won the fourth set 25-15 to send the match to the fifth where the Red Devils would pick up their first victory of the weekend with a 15-13 fifth set win.
The Bulldogs (14-5, 6-0 SCAC) will return to SCAC play as they travel to Sherman for three matches beginning with LeTourneau on Friday, Oct. 23 at 3:30 PM. The matches will be streamed on FloCollege. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.
For more information on Texas Lutheran volleyball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (TLU Volleyball), X (Twitter) (@TLU_VB), and Instagram (@tlu_vb) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on X (Twitter), @tlu_athletics on Instagram, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).
