DENVER, Colo. – The No. 9 Angelo State volleyball team split a pair of top-25 matchups on Saturday, first falling to No. 21 Colorado School of Mines and then beating No. 17 Lewis in the Belles' final match of the Colorado Premiere Challenge at the Regis Fieldhouse.
Angelo State (6-2) finished the tournament with a 2-2 record and went 2-1 against top-25 ranked opponents. The Belles are now 4-1 in neutral court matches as they shift attention to Lone Star Conference play which begins next week.
“I think this opened our eyes that we still have a lot of work to do,” ASU head coach
Chuck Waddington said. “We were kind of floating around like we had it made, but this shows us that we are not quite there yet. Our goals are still out there but we have to play better than we did in our losses if we want to achieve them.”
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Colorado School of Mines box score
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Lewis University box score
Kaelen Valdez led the Belles with 14 kills and added 15 digs in ASU's 4-1 (12-25, 25-15, 27-25, 25-23) win over Lewis.
Shelby Wilt recorded a career high 30 assists and also led the team with 24 digs.
Shelbi Goode finished the match with 11 kills to take her season total to 106, while
Chelsea Gibson had 11 digs and seven assists.
Emily Booth hit for a .583 average and finished with eight kills. Gibson is now only 21 kills away from 1,000 in her career.
“We finally started making plays and less errors to get a much needed win,” said Waddington, who has now won 95 matches as the Belles' head coach. “We competed harder and that made the difference for us.”
ASU dropped its first match 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-22) to Colorado School of Mines.
Kaelen Valdez led the Belles with 11 kills and 11 digs, while Woolsey contributed 29 assists and 10 digs. Goode had eight kills with
Arielle Bond adding five kills. The Orediggers outblocked the Belles 10-7 in the match and forced an uncharacteristic 24 errors.
“The beginning of was not as crisp as we needed it to be,” Waddington said. “We were very high error, didn't defend well and didn't block very good. The other team played hard and took it to us.”
Angelo State returns home to begin Lone Star Conference play on Friday at 7 p.m. against Cameron and will also host Midwestern State on Saturday at 2 p.m. The matches will be the first home matches of the season for ASU which went 13-1 last season in the Junell Center.
“We are looking forward to playing in front of our home crowd and not be on the road,” Waddington said. “This was a long trip but I think we are better for it.”
