Above, graduate student setter Emily DeWalt sets a ball during a Texas State match earlier this season. DeWalt tallied a team-high 17 digs which lead to 39 assists during the Bobcats’ sweep over Southern Miss on Friday. Daily Record photo by Gerald Castillo
TXST begins weekend with sweep over Southern Miss
Texas State began its two-game, weekend series against Southern Miss with a 3-0 sweep.
The Bobcats downed the Golden Eagles (25-21, 25-18, 25-23) in front of 1,330 fans inside Strahan Arena — the largest crowd to pack the venue this season.
“I thought that was a fun win,” said head coach Sean Huiet, who won his 65th career match as Texas State’s head coach on Friday. “We’ve been telling our team we like where we are at. We are in a great spot. We are trending up and playing really, really consistent, while battling some injuries, but the best part is that we have kids who step up every night. I thought that was a really good win against a really good team.”
The Bobcats’ limited Southern Miss sophomore outside hitter Mia Wesley, who entered Friday’s contest leading the Sun Belt with 4.9 kills per set, which was 0.66% higher than the next Sun Belt student-athlete. Texas State held Wesley to just 11 kills Friday night.
While Texas State limited Wesley to 11 kills, she committed three attack errors on 48 total attacks — a .167 attack percentage.
The Bobcats tallied 61 digs during Friday’s victory, marking the most digs by the team this season. Graduate student setter Emily DeWalt led the squad with 17 digs, which lead to 39 assists to redshirt senior outside hitter Lauren Teske and graduate student outside hitter Janell Fitzgereld, who both finished with double-digit kills
“I just think we knew our serving game was off, and so we were going to have to defend really well, which is a big thing when another team has a really good offensive player,” Teske said. “We were going to have to know where (Mia Wesley) was on the court at all times. She was really active on the backrow, too, so we just had to know where she was at all times and just get really gritty with defense. And I thought we did that tonight. There were a lot of long rallies we could’ve given up during, but we stuck those out. We knew it was going to be a fight and we were prepared for it.”
Texas State returned to the court Saturday afternoon for the second matchup against Southern Miss. The match began after press time. For full coverage of Saturday’s match visit sanmarcosrecord.com/sports or see Tuesday’s paper.
