The Lady Mustangs volleyball team (10-2, 3-1) fell to the Arizona Christian University Firestorm on the road Wednesday in Glendale, Ariz.
This was TMU's first loss (23-25, 17-25, 25-14, 22-25) in conference play as they lost to an ACU squad who they had beaten earlier this month.
Freshman
Macy Gebhards led the team with 19 kills and
Kate Wagner added 48 assists to her season total of 459.
The Lady Mustangs kept it close in the first set, never letting the Firestorm lead get larger than three points. They closed the gap to just one at 23-24, but ACU snagged a kill to steal the opening frame.
"We were attacking in bad situations throughout the night," TMU Head Coach
McKenna Hafner said. "There are a lot of high errors when our first touch isn't great."
TMU struggled, with 28 errors, compared to just 14 for ACU. ACU scored six straight points in the second set to build a 20-13 lead and eventually take a commanding 2-0 advantage.
The Lady Mustangs continued to fight back as they jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the third set off a block from
Kinsley Kollmann and
Krista Brady. The lead grew to 10 at the 20-10 mark and TMU took the third set 25-14 to stay alive.
ACU got out to a 12-6 lead early in the fourth set but TMU rallied. The Lady Mustangs rattled off three straight kills and a kill from Aaralynn Nichols tied the score at 21. But two errors by TMU and a kill from ACU's Haley Tedrow closed out the game.
"Every loss is a chance to learn," Hafner said. "The goal is to be the best team we can possibly be and we learned a lot tonight."
The Lady Mustangs will play next at home on Saturday against Embry-Riddle University at 2:00 PM.
