SEGUIN, Texas -- Texas Lutheran Volleyball put together an epic rally to take down St. Thomas in five sets, 25-23, 15-25, 19-25, 25-19, 16-14, on Senior Night on Friday at Memorial Gymnasium.
The Bulldogs (20-5, 12-0 SCAC) trailed 11-9 in the fifth set before rallying to complete the comeback and send off senior
Dallas Copelin (Houston/St. John XXIII College Preparatory) with a win in her final home game. The Bulldogs honored Copelin with a post-game ceremony.
Texas Lutheran had four players finish with double-digit kills as
Ella Waterbury (Buda/Johnson) and
Addison Gallegos (Floresville/Jourdanton) spread the offense around. Both setters finished with double-doubles with Waterbury posting 26 assists and 15 digs while Gallegos added 22 assists and 17 digs and a kill. Both also had one service ace.
Andie Lozano-Lomeli (Brownsville/Pace) finished with 13 kills, three blocks, and eight digs with a .216 hitting percentage.
Nadia Dunn (Houston/Pearland) posted 12 kills and ten digs for her first double-double of the season.
Ava Search (Richmond/Needville) finished with 11 kills and a career-high 33 digs.
Briana Salvatierra-Moore (San Antonio/Antonian College Prep) had ten kills, three blocks, and five digs.
Kieryn Adams (Schulenburg/Schulenburg) finished with 28 digs, while
Naomi Gamboa (San Antonio/Warren) had 19 digs.
Texas Lutheran held on to win the opening set, 25-23, hitting .176 in the set. Five Bulldogs had at least three kills in the set with Dunn leading the way with four.
St. Thomas started the second set with a 5-1 run and the Bulldogs never recovered, dropping the set, 25-15. The Celts hit .226 in the set while holding the Bulldogs to a .000 hitting percentage.
The third set saw 14 ties and nine lead changes before the Bulldogs fell, 25-19.
The fourth set saw a similar pattern in the beginning with neither team able to get any momentum. A 4-0 run through the media timeout gave Texas Lutheran just the window they needed to force the fifth set. The Celts attempted to rally, bringing the set to 18-17 before the Bulldogs closed out the set on a 7-2 run to send the match to five.
Neither team was able to get an advantage early as the final set sat at 9-9. The Bulldogs fell behind 11-9 before tying it at 11 and closing the match by winning five of the final eight points.
Texas Lutheran turns its attention to the regular season finale. TLU will close out the regular season at Concordia (TX) on Sunday, Nov. 8, at Deb & Don Christian Fieldhouse. First serve is set for 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).
