ARLINGTON, Texas – The UT Arlington volleyball team (13-7, 5-3 WAC) pulled out a thrilling, five-set win against Abilene Christian (5-15, 2-6) 25-18, 25-20, 22-25, 14-25, 18-16 inside the College Park Center Thursday.
The win improved the Mavericks to 5-1 in fifth-set matches this year with victories in five straight, and it also completes a season sweep over ACU including a four-set triumph on Sept. 29. They'll be back in action Saturday at noon against Sam Houston inside the CPC.
"It was definitely an up and down match," head coach
J.T. Wenger said. "We did some things really well for a span and then we'd drop off a bit. It was definitely good to get a win. We had a gritty performance down the stretch."
After ACU came back from down 2-0 to force a fifth set, Thursday's match came down to the final points. With UTA down 8-5 at the switch in the fifth, an unforced error from ACU and a kill from
Brooke Townsend brought the Mavs within one point. After a monster block from Puckett to tie the set at nine,
Briana Brown,
Brianna Ford and
Kortney Puckett made key offensive plays down the stretch to pick up the win.
Alli Wells reached 1,500 career digs in the second set of the match, becoming the ninth player in program history to reach that milestone. She finished with a season-high 33 digs, while recording her eighth career match with at least 30. On top of that, Wells pushed her career total to 1,525, which puts her 26 way from surpassing Ana de Oliveira (1,550, 1985-88) for eighth-place all-time.
Meanwhile, Ford continued to impress this season, recording her 12th double-double of the year and the 25th of her career. She finished with a match-high 15 kills, 12 digs, four blocks and an ace.
Three players finished the match with at least 10 kills, including Brown and Townsend with 11 apiece. Puckett chipped in nine while
Devon Martinka also recorded a season high seven.
Meredith Fisher also matched Martinka's total.
Mollie Blank (24)
and
Sophie Skinner (23)
had a combined 47 assists.
Alyssa Duran had a season high five assists, which also matched her career-high, to go along with nine digs.
The Mavericks put up a massive block against the Wildcats, with Fisher and Puckett recording five blocks each while the team totaled 19 overall.
Townsend's 11 kills pushed her career total to 1,233, which puts her 13 shy of moving past Fannie Burton (1,245, 1991-94) for 11th place on the program's all-time list.
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