Freshman Whitney Walls continued her torrid play with a match-high 14 kills on Tuesday night.SAN ANTONIO
— UTSA hit a season-high .376 and the Roadrunners ended their three-match losing streak with an easy 25-20, 25-15, 25-10 victory against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday night at the Convocation Center.
Led by outside hitters Whitney Walls (match-high 14 kills) and Kendra Rowland (12), UTSA committed just nine errors on its 109 attacks and racked up 50 winners in the one-hour, 13-minute contest. The victory ran the Birds' record to a perfect 12-0 in the all-time series with the Islanders and five of the last seven meetings have been sweeps.
After A&M-Corpus Christi took a 20-18 lead in the opening set, UTSA (10-16, 5-7 SLC) scored the final seven points for the early 1-0 lead. The Roadrunners then raced out to a 6-1 advantage in the following frame and never looked back, hitting .364 (15 kills/3 errors/33 attacks) in the process, and they took a commanding edge into intermission.
UTSA came out of the locker room and thoroughly dominated the final set. The Birds hit a sizzling .536 on the strength of 17 winners and just a pair of errors on their 28 swings, leaving no doubt who was the better team.
Walls hit .458 on the night to continue her tremendous play on the right side. The freshman from Arlington has racked up 49 kills (4.08 kps) in her last three contests and is hitting a robust .459 during that stretch. Setters Amber Brooks and Vickie Mundell each handed out 20 assists in Laura Neugebauer-Groff's 6-2 offense and Mundell served up a match-best three aces.
Defensively, libero Kelsey Jewasko recorded 19 digs and middle hitter Brittney Malloy had four block assists.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (7-20, 0-12 SLC), which dropped its 12th consecutive match, was led by Jessica Korda and Emma Ridley, who both had 10 kills.
UTSA hits the road for the final time this fall when it travels to the Bayou State of Louisiana this weekend. The Birds will take on Nicholls (10-16, 4-8 SLC) at 7 p.m. on Friday followed by a 2 p.m. tilt at Southeastern Louisiana (8-15, 4-8 SLC) the next day.