BOX SCORE

CANYON, Texas – The Angelo State Belles advanced to the Lone Star Conference Volleyball Championship finals with a 3-1 win over Abilene Christian on Friday at the WTAMU Fieldhouse.

The Belles, who won the match 30-32, 25-18, 25-21, 25-17, will be playing in the championship for the second straight season against West Texas A&M (32-2) at 7 p.m. on Saturday. Angelo State (30-4) is looking for its first conference championship since 1992 and improved to 30-9 all-time in LSC tournament appearances with the victory over ACU.

“One of the things we talked about coming into the tournament was playing with heart,” ASU head coach Chuck Waddington said. “Even though we lost that first set, I never once saw any doubt in our girls. We fought our way back into the first set that we lost and used that effort as momentum going forward. It takes a fighting spirit to win at this point of the season, and we showed that the entire match.”

Kaelen Valdez led Angelo State with 19 kills and added 14 digs, while Alex Woolsey ran the offense with precision with 54 assists and added a team-leading 15 digs. Maddie Huth tallied 13 kills and Celeste Bonter had 12 for the Belles who finished the match with 67 team kills. Shelby Wilt and Shelby Warick contributed double-digit digs with 12 and 10, respectively, while Chelsea Gibson came up big with 11 kills. ASU finished with 13 team blocks.

Jennie Hutt led Abilene Christian (21-13) with 18 kills, while Haley Rhoades added 49 assists for the Wildcats.

With the win, Angelo State improved to 2-1 against ACU this season and 56-31 in the historical series between the two universities.

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Additional Quotes

Angelo State head coach Chuck Waddington
On the Belles coming back to win 3-1 after dropping the opening set:
The difference between the first set and the others was that our blocking improved tremendously… We didn't make a lot of errors. We made a few, but they were intermittent and kept the other team from going on runs.


Celeste Bonter: Senior outside hitter from Madoc, Ontario
On the Belles coming back to win 3-1 after dropping the opening set:
Our team has been really good at coming back all year. At this point in the year for us to keep playing this way with so much confidence even when we are down says a lot about our team. We never gave up at all.

Shelby Warick: Sophomore defensive specialist from San Angelo
On what the Angelo State Belles did well against the Wildcats:
We did a great job of digging balls that a lot of times get down and we were able to put them away. Our blocking was really strong tonight, too. The match was really intense but we didn't let it affect us.

Debbie Ohl: Senior from Hutchinson, Kansas
On what the Angelo State Belles did well against the Wildcats:
Alex did a great job knowing who was on. Kaelen was a beast out there. She was killing every ball she had coming to her. We just knew who was clicking and were to put the ball.

Kayla Smith: Senior outside hitter from Kerrville
On the Belles coming back to win 3-1 after dropping the opening set:
We focused in on what we needed to do and got the job done. We focused on the details. Our blocking got better and we started digging a lot more balls. We didn't make a lot of errors and we forced them to make errors.