Tournament Central

SAN ANGELO – The Angelo State volleyball team advanced to the Lone Star Conference Championship finals with a 3-2 (25-14, 18-25, 25-19, 24-26, 15-11) semifinal victory over Texas Woman's on Friday at the Junell Center.

The Belles (27-4) will play West Texas A&M for the tournament championship for the third straight year and will look to end the Lady Buffs' six-year reign as champions. ASU, which is the regular-season LSC champion, last won the tournament championship in 1992. The championship game will be played at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Click for notes.

The win over Texas Woman's was the Belles' first five-set match of the season at home and pushes their record inside the Junell Center to 13-0. TWU ends its season with a 23-8 record, but not before pushing the Belles to its toughest win at home all season.

“I just wanted them to play good volleyball in that final set and that's what we did,” ASU head coach Chuck Waddington said. “We kept our composure in a pressure situation in front of 1,300 people who were chanting 'ASU' at the end of a five-set match. It was just crazy and our girls came through.

“Texas Woman's is immensely talented and played a tremendous match. They are a great team and we are very proud that we played good enough to get past them.”

Shelbi Goode led the Belles with 18 kills, while Maddie Huth added 16 and eight blocks. Leah McWilliams had a career-high 14 kills. Alex Woolsey continued to orchestrate an effective offense with 53 assists and Katie MacLeay added a career-high 20 digs. Shelby Wilt contributed 18 digs and Haley Bianco added another 10. Emily Booth led Angelo State with a .615 hitting percentage and had nine kills.

Angelo State hit for a .269 percentage and held TWU to a .077 percentage in the fifth set. ASU is now 2-2 in five-set matches this season and 2-1 against TWU this season after the two teams split their regular-season matches against each other.

Viktorija Jablonska led TWU with 21 kills, 25 assists and 15 digs. The Belles and Pioneers each had 11 blocks in the match and ASU held a slim advantage with 85 digs to TWU's 82.  

“You have to learn through everything that you go through as a team and we can use this tough match to our benefit,” Waddington said. “We're advancing, but we also got tougher as a team tonight. This was a defining and special moment for our program.”