HUNTSVILLE – Sam Houston could not hold onto a 2-1 lead on Saturday afternoon as NM State rallied back to steal the final two sets, and the match, with a 3-2 win over the Bearkats at Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum.
Sam Houston (6-14, 3-3 WAC) was just a set away from rebounding from its loss on Thursday to UTRGV, but the Aggies (10-6, 3-2 WAC) owned the final two frames and finished with 13 blocks for the match.
The Kats will stay at home next week with two more matches at the Coliseum, starting Thursday vs Utah Tech and ending the 4-match homestand with a Saturday matinee vs Southern Utah.
Katie Birtcil led NM State with 20 kills and four blocks, while Lia Mosher and Molly Johnson had seven and eight blocks apiece, helping hold the Kats to just .040 hitting for the match.
Sam Houston got 11 kills apiece from
Madison Dyer,
Alyssa Fielder and
Catherine Krieger; however, the offense had to work all afternoon, hitting at less than .200 in four of the five frames.
Hannah Baker turned in a big day on the back row with 29 digs, while Dyer had a hand in six of the Kats' 11 rejections for the match.
The Kats played from out in front for the majority of the first set, leading by as much as six points before closing it out on their second try at set-point.
It looked as though the Kats would go up 2-0 after an 11-3 run had them up by three points midway through Set 2, but NM State responded and knotted things up at 20-20 and took advantage of an overturned call late in the set to spur a 4-0 run that closed the set and evened the match.
Four ballhandling errors by the Aggies in Set 3 helped the Kats cruise to a 2-1 lead, but NM State turned it on from there on out. The Aggies recorded six blocks in Set 4, jumping out to an early 8-3 lead and leading by as much as 10, cruising to a 25-15 win to square the match.
They were able to carry that momentum into Set 5, starting the final set by scoring six of the first seven points before hitting .240 for the frame in a 15-9 win.
