Box Score

TROY, Ala. – Texas State put on a dominating performance to sweep Arkansas State 25-15, 25-16, 25-20 Friday and advance to the Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Championship match to be played at 1 p.m. The Bobcats will face No. 4 UT Arlington, who beat No. 8 Troy in a five-set thriller Friday night. The match will be available on ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app. Fans in San Marcos can watch the live stream at Bobcat Nation.
 


Texas State's Caylin Mahoney kept the Arkansas State defense off balance all match spreading the ball around to all of her hitters while still managing five kills herself. She finished with 34 assists and eight digs along with four block assists.
 
The Texas State block was impressive as the Bobcats put down 10 to just five for ASU. Ashlee Hilbun led the team with five block assists while Molly Ahrens added four to give her 129 block assists on the season, tying her for the third best all-time season in block assists with DeAndrea Limbrick who tallied 129 in 1990. With two more in the championship match, Ahrens can tie second place Amy Amundson who tallied 131 in 2003.
 
It was a total onslaught for Texas State, attacking the Red Wolves both offensively and defensively. The blocks were a problem for ASU but when they were able to finally sneak a ball through to the back, the Bobcats' back line was there. Three players had double-digit digs with 12 each for Kelsey Weynand and Sierra Smith. Shelby Vas Matt notched 11 in the match.
 
Smith's 12 digs gives her 533 for the season for the second best digging season all-time at Texas State. She is just nine digs short of catching Kacey Wimpy and her all-time record of 542 set in 2007.
 
Amari Deardorff led the Bobcats offensively with 12 kills on a .375 hitting percentage. She added a solo block and two block assists to work the defensive side of the net. Four other Bobcats notched at least six kills or more with the five from Mahoney to provide a balanced and unpredictable attack. Hilbun had eight kills and Alexandra Simms put down seven. Ahrens and Vas Matt had six kills each.
 
The Bobcat defense force a number of changes on the ASU side of the net as the Red Wolves tried to find something that could work. They made changes at middle blocker, outside hitter and eventually changed setters for the third set. None worked in a dominating match for Texas State.
 
Arkansas State started the match strong due to Texas State errors, building up 4-1 and 5-2 leads but the Bobcats bounced back big and in a hurry. Texas State used a 5-0 run built on three ASU errors, an Ali Hubicsak ace and a Hilbun kill. Just like that Texas State was up 7-5. The Bobcats kept scoring, at times in three-point runs, to run away with the first set, 25-15.
 
Texas State used another big run in the second set to gain control of the match. Down 5-4, the Bobcats went on a 5-0 run behind kills from Deardorff, Vas Matt and Mahoney along with two ASU errors. Later, with an 11-8 lead, Texas State began to pour it on. Two more kills from Mahoney and three ASU errors extend the lead to 16-8 en route to a 25-16 second-set win.
 
The Bobcats hit an outstanding .400 as a team in the second set with 16 kills on 35 attemps with just two errors.
 
The third set proved to be Arkansas State's best, understandably so with the Red Wolves playing for their season. Thanks to a hot start by Texas State, ASU started the third in a pretty big hole. Two 3-0 runs and a four-point run yielded a quick 10-3 lead for Texas State.
 
Leading 12-8, the Bobcats received kills from Ahrens and Deardorff along with two more ASU errors and a Texas State block for a 17-8 lead.
 
The Red Wolves eventually fought back from a 20-11 deficit with a few runs of their own to make it just a three-point set, 22-19. After the teams traded points, Ahrens put down a kill and Arkansas State hit one of its 18 hitting errors to wrap up the match for Texas State.
 
UT Arlington swept South Alabama to reach the semifinals against Troy after the Trojans upset No. 1 Western Kentucky in a sweep. The Mavericks and Trojans went to five with UTA coming out on top in a 22-20 fifth set.

Click here for notes on the championship match.