CORPUS CHRISTI – For the third time in the last five seasons, the Sam Houston volleyball team have advanced to the Southland Tournament title match after a 3-1 win over Central Arkansas on Friday afternoon at the Dugan Wellness Center.
 
The Bearkats (11-2) got 19 kills and 17 digs from Ashley Lewis and 14 kills from Catherine Krieger to avenge one of their only two losses on the season. The Sugar Bears (12-8) were playing their third match in three days, and still hit .218 for the match; however, the Kats were able to get key runs when they needed to throughout the afternoon.

Sam Houston will No. 4 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the title match for the program's first berth in the NCAA Tournament since 1996. The match is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and will be aired on ESPN+.
 
Along with Lewis and Krieger, Breanne Chausse delivered 12 kills and McKenzie Morvant was big with six kills on 16 tries to go with seven blocks. De'Janae Gilmore also delivered seven scores, and Hannah Baker was even with Lewis to lead Kats with 17 digs.
 
The Kats hit .226 in Set 1, coming back from a 13-10 deficit midway through the set to close strong and take a 1-0 lead being six kills and seven digs from Lewis.
 
Sam Houston followed that up with a strong second set, and closed strong, scoring the final seven points of the set to go up 2-0.
 
It looked s though the Kats would roll to a sweep, staking itself to a 15-10 lead in Set 3 before UCA put the pieces together and reeled off 15 of the final 20 points of the set to stay alive with a 25-20 win.
 
But the Kats were able to put things away in the fourth behind five kills from Krieger and three from Lewis. Things were tight late in the set before a key call went the Bearkats' way on a kill form Gilmore to give the Kats a match-point try and two points later Janda was able to put away the match's final kill.