HOUSTON, Texas -- Texas Lutheran Volleyball survived a wild five-set thriller against St. Thomas, the SCAC preseason favorites, 21-25, 25-18, 22-25, 25-14, 15-9, to remain unbeaten in Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) play on Friday night at Jerabeck Activity and Athletic Center.
The 5-0 start to conference play is the best start for the Bulldogs since 2012's 5-0 start in the American Southwest Conference (ASC).
Nadia Dunn (Houston/Pearland),
Andie Lozano-Lomeli (Brownsville/Pace), and
Briana Salvatierra-Moore (San Antonio/Antonian College Prep) led the Bulldogs with 11 kills each, while
Zaria Solis (Burnet/Burnet) joined them in double figures with ten kills. Lozano-Lomeli led the team with six blocks, her second-straight match with six blocks.
Addison Gallegos (Floresville/Jourdanton) had her fifth double-double of the season with 23 assists and 15 digs, while also adding a block and an ace.
Ella Waterbury (Buda/Johnson), who was this week's SCAC Setter of the Week, dished out a match and career-high 24 assists in addition to eight digs and three aces.
Kieryn Adams (Schulenburg/Schulenburg) led the team with 23 digs while
Naomi Gamboa (San Antonio/Warren) and
Ava Search (Richmond/Needville) finished with 21 digs each. Search added nine kills, four blocks, and three aces while Adams finished with seven assists.
The first set saw seven ties and two lead changes but TLU was unable the Celts hitting nearly double their percentage, falling 25-22.
The Bulldogs responded by hitting .348 in the second set, tying the match with a 25-18 set win.
The Celts maintained a narrow advantage through a majority of the third set as the teams went back-and-forth until UST finished the set with a 25-19 win and took a 2-1 lead in the match.
The fourth set saw the Bulldogs stretch out to an 18-11 lead and emphatically sending the match to a fifth set with a 25-14 win.
The Bulldogs started strong in the fifth set, taking an 8-3 lead and building out to a 12-8 lead late. The Bulldogs closed out the match with a 15-9 win in the fifth set.
Texas Lutheran will return home to Memorial Gymnasium on Saturday, Oct. 10 to host Concordia (TX) at 1 PM. The match 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 onÂ
tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on X (Twitter), @tlu_athletics on Instagram, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).
