Silver City, NM- Friday night the Lady Mustangs volleyball took on Westminster College (4-9, 1-4 RMAC). With the win on Friday, the Mustangs are on a six game win streak and are still undefeated in RMAC (6-0). Western New Mexico University swept Westminster in three games (25-9, 25-20, 25-21).
Starting off the match, Western came out hot by jumping to an 8-1 lead. In the first set the Mustangs came out with 10 kills while having a hitting percentage at .200 compared to Westminster’s 3 kills and -.286 percentage. Chyler Imai came off the bench and served an ace to make the score 18-6. The lead was then extended to 20-7 after a kill from Meanie Hughes, as the Mustangs went on to win the set 25-9.
Starting off with the first point of the second set came from a kill by Shannon Rich. The Mustangs lead increased to 6-3 thanks to a kill from Morgan Lyneis. After a block by Mustang’s Taryn Schriner to make a score of 11-5, Westminster’s momentum changed after serving an ace to make the score 17-12. WNMU hung in to keep a lead of 21-18 after an error from Westminster, and went on to take the set 25-20.
Melanie Hughes carried the Mustangs in assists with 17 in just the first two sets. Rich, Leeta Grap, and Lyneis had a total of 16 of 26 kills for WNMU in the first two sets.
Starting of the third set, WNMU came out slow to start by having two straight errors and a block came from Westminster to take a 7-5 lead. Another error was given to Mustangs Grap, but then came back with her own kill to make the score 11-12. Westminster controlled most of the game until WNMU scored thanks to Rich’s kill to make the score 19-20. From then on the Mustangs went on to score the next seven of eight points. An ace came from WNMU’s Hughes to make the score 23-20. The Mustangs went on to win the set 25-21 from a serving error from Westminster.
Grap went on to lead the team in kills with 10 and Rich with 9 kills. Hughes gathered most of the Mustangs assists with 24.
The Mustangs next challenge will be Saturday night at home against Colorado Mesa.
