KERRVILLE, Texas – The 13th-ranked Trinity University volleyball team finished off its regular season schedule with a 3-0 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference victory at Schreiner University on Thursday evening.
The Tigers will head into postseason play with a 26-4 overall record and will be the top seed at the SCAC Tournament after posting a 15-1 record in conference play. The SCAC Tournament will be held Friday-Saturday, November 10-11, at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. With tonight's result, Head Coach
Julie Jenkins won her 400th career SCAC match and is the all-time leader in conference history in any sport.
Trinity's offense hit .292 for the match, committing just 11 errors on 106 swings.
Mackenzie Logan (Calgary, Canada / Bishop Carroll) led the way with 13 kills and a .458 hitting percentage, while
Brette Thornton (Rockwall, Texas / Rockwall) finished with nine kills (.333) and a team-best four blocks. The Tiger teammates also had 10 total digs between the two of them and tallied 13.5 points each in the match.
Jozie Dhayer (Houston, Texas / Summer Creek) recorded 17 assists to lead the team, while
Marisa Amarino (Calabasas, Calif. / Notre Dame Prep) had nine in just two sets of action.
Kendall DeRivel (Westlake Village, Calif. / Viewpoint) also notched seven assists in just one set of play, while
Jenna Rodriguez (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) added six assists to go with her nine digs.
Nadia Kern (El Paso, Texas / Montwood) had a match-leading 14 digs to pace a Tiger defense that finished with 63 total in the match.
Maddie Fate (Croton on Hudson, N.Y. / Croton Harmon) chipped in with three solo blocks on defense and five kills on offense to snag eight total points – trailing only Thornton and Logan for the team lead.
Connelley McWilliams (Austin, Texas / St. Michael's) and
Marissa Drange (Boerne, Texas / Champion) both contributed five kills and the duo combined for nine digs.
The Rundown
After giving up the first point of the opening set, Trinity got four quick points to grab the early momentum in the regular season finale. Logan had a pair of kills in the run, while Fate had a kill and a block. Schreiner made a quick run to try and trim the lead, but the Tigers were relentless in the early going and an 11-5 advantage forced an early timeout by the Mountaineers. Although Schreiner picked up a point coming out of the timeout, Trinity's fire continued burning and four straight points resulted in another quick timeout and a 15-6 Tiger lead. The set went back-and-forth the rest of the way, but the early lead held as Trinity won comfortably, 25-16.
The Tigers put the Mountaineers on their heels once again to start the second set, rattling off five straight points that included a pair of aces from Amarino. Several points later, Thornton started a spurt of three straight Trinity points with her third kill of the match and Schreiner called for a stoppage after the lead had bloomed to 11-4. Each time Schreiner tried to reel in the Tigers, Trinity rattled off another run to keep the lead from 5-7 points. The margin went to eight late in the set and then Trinity ramped up the intensity once again, with Thornton scoring two kills to lead a 5-1 finishing run to take a 25-14 victory and a 2-0 lead.
Schreiner did not go easily in the third and actually held small leads in the early part of the set. Logan knocked down three kills early on to help the Tigers keep pace, then Drange did the same several points later to tie things up at 9-all. The Mountaineers scored next to take a small 10-9 lead, but Logan, Thornton, and McWilliams had two kills each during a 6-0 Trinity run that made it a 15-10 Tiger lead. Schreiner picked up the next two points to pull within three, but never got any closer than that the rest of the way. DeRivel capped off a 5-2 Trinity run with back-to-back aces to take the lead to 23-16, then McWilliams put the final punctuation mark on the performance with a match-ending kill.
Up Next
Trinity will get the weekend to prepare for the upcoming SCAC Tournament in Georgetown, Texas. The Tigers will be the top seed in the tournament by virtue of their 15-1 SCAC record and regular season title. The tournament begins on November 3, with match times and opponents to be announced soon by the SCAC office.
