Box Score

ARLINGTON, Texas – In one of the most entertaining matches any fan will see this season, UT Arlington just barely outlasted Texas State Wednesday night, 3-2 (18-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-22, 15-12). The match drops the Bobcats to 13-7 on the season and 3-2 in the Sun Belt Conference. Sierra Smith, however, provided a bright spot for Texas State with a career high and school record 37 digs.
 
Five Bobcats reached double-digit kills in the match while only two Mavericks could do it. Texas State's Shelby Vas Matt led the team in kills with 16 while Amari Deardorff added 14 kills. Alexandra Simms finished with 13 kills while Ashlee Hilbun and Molly Ahrens each had 12 from the middle.
 
Caylin Mahoney gave out 58 assists with 15 digs for a double-double while Vas Matt also double-doubled with 13 digs. Kelsey Weynand added 13 digs, and Jordan Moore had 10. Smith's 37 digs, however, were the most any Texas State Bobcat has tallied since 2006. The previous record holders were Lucretia Hamilton, who tallied 36 digs in 1995, and Kacey Wimpy, who did it in 2006.
 
The Bobcats put down 73 kills in the match, 19 more than UT Arlington. Unfortunately, Texas State also had 37 errors to hit .167. The Mavericks only had 18 errors in the match. The Mavs also outblocked the Bobcats, 15-7. 
 
Texas State started a little slow against UT Arlington Wednesday night, falling behind by three points a number of times during the first set. However, trailing 13-10, the Bobcats came roaring back with an 8-0 run to gain control of the set.
 
Hilbun had three kills in the run while Vas Matt put down two. Mahoney added her first kill of the match and UTA added two errors. With a commanding 18-13 lead, the Bobcats finished strong for a 25-18 win in the opening set, led by Hilbun's five kills on six errorless attacks.
 
The Bobcats carried momentum into the second set, starting it out on a 6-1 run. The Mavericks would not go down easy though, battling back to a 16-16 tie. Mahoney and Hilbun put down a big block to break the tie and regain the lead, 17-16.
 
Texas State's lead would be short lived. The Mavericks tied the second set, 21-21, and grabbed their first lead of the second set at 23-22. After a timeout, UT Arlington scored the 24^th point on a Texas State error and made a block to win the second set and tie the match, 1-1.
 
Through the first two sets, Texas State had 10 more kills than UT Arlington, 34-24, but seven more errors, 13-6. Both teams were hitting comparable: .250-.234, but Texas State's Sierra Smith was making it very difficult for the Mavericks to put down any kills with an outstanding 17 digs through two sets. That average of 8.5 digs per set blows away her team-leading season average of 3.43 digs per set.
 
Mahoney also played excellent through two sets, averaging 14 assists per set, more than five assists higher than her season average of 8.96 assists per set.
 
In the third set, the Mavericks jumped out to an 11-6 lead. The Bobcats went on a 4-0 run to pull within one, 11-10, and eventually tied the set, 13-13, on a UTA error. Both teams jostled back and forth throughout the third set, but Smith kept getting under UTA's attacks. In the third set, she notched her 22^nd dig to pass up her previous career high of 21 digs set Sept. 7 at North Texas.
 
Neither team could pull away in the third set. Tied 18-18, Simms came into the set and proved to be the difference. She had three big kills down the stretch, including the one to give Texas State set point, 24-22. She put down seven kills on 10 errorless attacks in the third set and came up with two big digs in the frame. Ahrens followed with the winning point of the set with a kill cross court on the slide, finding the back left corner for the 2-1 lead in the match.
 
The Mavericks were in complete control to start the fourth set, building a 16-10 lead. At that point, Texas State turned the tide. Hilbun put a kill down on the back left side and Vas Matt followed with one on an overpass. After that, Mahoney put down a huge solo block to pull the Bobcats within three, 16-13.
 
From there, the Mavs tallied two points out of the timeout for an 18-13 lead. The closest Texas State would get after that was within two to make it 23-21 on a UTA ball handling error and 24-22 on a Vas Matt kill. The Mavericks made a block, though, for the 25^th point to take the set and tie the match, 2-2.
 
The Mavs jumped out to a 5-1 lead to start the fifth set and extended it to 8-2 before the teams switched sides. In the fifth set, Smith tied the team record for digs in a match with her 36^th. The dig led directly to a Simms kill.
 
Texas State continued to fight back and used consecutive blocks to pull within two, 12-10. First, Ahrens and Simms teamed up for one, and then Ahrens and Deardorff put one down. The Bobcats would put another block down before the end of the set, but UT Arlington finished the match with two blocks for the victory and the early edge in the Sun Belt Conference standings.
 
The teams will meet again Oct. 30 in San Marcos. Texas State returns home to Strahan Coliseum this weekend to host Arkansas State at 6:30 p.m. Friday and Arkansas-Little Rock at 1 p.m. Sunday. Friday's match is Texas State's Pink Out match to help raise funds and awareness for breast cancer. There will be a silent auction starting at 5 p.m. and fans wearing pink will be admitted for just $3. All of the proceeds will go toward a Hays County organization called Pink Heals. For more information, click here.