Jason Poland
Sports Editor
One, two, three and it’s a sweep for the Lady Buffs volleyball team on Tuesday night against the Chaparrals from Lubbock Christian Univeristy by scores of 25-17, 25-14 and 25-12.
The win extends the Lady Buffs record to 28-4 overall and 11-0 in Lone Star Conference play.
The Lady Buffs have now won their last six matches and 12 of their last 13 matches.
The team’s last loss was at the hands of the same Chaparrals in Lubbock.
From the opening of the match the Lady Buffs took control of the pace of the game and never relinquished their hold on the match at any point against Lubbock Christian.
“We worked a lot this week with our control,” junior Natalie Johnson said.
“We wanted to side out really fast in order to keep them from getting momentum.”
WT was able to keep their opponent from going on long scoring runs as Lubbock Christian’s longest scoring streak was four points on the night and that only happened once in the three games.
“We focused on not letting them get a run on us,” junior Katie Rickwartz said.
“Our blockers did a great job of handling them. We were able to stabilize their hitters.”
The defense for the Lady Buffs stepped up big in the match as the Lady Buffs forced the Chaparrals into almost as many errors, 23, as they had kills, 24.
This helped to offset any type of surge that Lubbock Christian could have mustered throughout the night.
“Communication is kind of everything to defense,” Johnson said.
“As long as we are all talking we know that we are all reading the same thing.”
Another Lady Buff echoed communication, as a key to the team’s defense effort on the night.
“If you do not have anyone opening their mouths, you have three girls running into each other,” Rickwartz said.
Throughout the night Rickwartz set up her teammates around net as the Lady Buffs continued to attack the net on the offensive side of the match. Rickwartz tallied 34 assists on the night to lead WT.
Leading the Lady Buffs in kills was junior Laura Prinsen with 13 to go along with 14 digs.
Natalie Johnson contributed 12 kills on the night and three digs.
The next leading scorer for WT was junior Melissa Harper who added 10 kills on the night.
Contributing the strong defensive effort was senior Sara Contreras who had 12 digs on the night.
The Lady Buffs will finish off their regular season over the weekend as they host Texas A&M-Kingsville at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Tarleton State at 12 p.m. on Saturday.
