NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Utah Valley women's volleyball lost to Stephen F. Austin 3-1 (13-25, 18-25, 31-29, 18-25) inside Shelton Gym. UVU (9-16, 6-8) was led by senior
Tori Ellis, who tied her season-high with 20 kills, while
Abbie Medeiros had a career-high 36 assists, including her 2,000-career assists. SFA (25-3, 14-0) got 18 kills from WAC Preseason Player of the Year, Ieland Bradley.
"We struggled during the first 2 sets and got outplayed. I was proud of how they fought in the third set, especially when we switched things up. I was proud of how
Tori Ellis and Abbie did today. We have so much to learn and get better at," said UVU head coach
Sam Atoa.
The Wolverines kept the first two sets close before SFA used a 10-2 run in the first set to pull away for the set victory to go up 1-0, and they used a 9-2 run to break up a 7-5 set to take a commanding 2-0 lead.
Utah Valley fought back in the third set, trailing early 6-1 and then 16-11. The Wolverines started chipping away at the deficit with kills from Ellis and
Charity Wilson while adding a block by
Caleigh Vagana, and Ellis made it a 16-15 set. After, SFA scored on a short run to make it 19-16. It was the middles that provided a spark with kills from Vagana and Nock to make it a one-point set. UVU took their first lead during a 4-0 run to go up 22-20 before the teams would go back and forth, with each having multiple set points. It was two errors from the Ladyjacks that forced a fourth set.
The momentum swung back to Stephen F. Austin as they used a 8-0 run to take a 14-5 lead before UVU would pull back to 14-9 following a 4-0 run led by kills by Ellis and Shewell. Utah Valley had one final push in them while trailing 22-15 before Wilson added her seventh kill of the match to set a new career-high and was followed by two consecutive service aces by
Molly Cummard, but the run was not enough to force a fifth set. Ellis added seven kills in the final set, with Shewell adding five.
Utah Valley will now close out the regular season with Southern Utah on Thursday, Nov. 9 at 6:00 p.m. MT and then host Utah Tech on Saturday, Nov. 11 for Senior Day.
