CONWAY, S.C. — The Texas State volleyball program had one message entering Friday afternoon's five-set win: no what ifs. The Bobcat coaching staff did not want to leave the HTC Center having not done everything within their power to achieve their ultimate goal.
Down two sets to one entering the afternoon's fourth set, assistant coach
Keith Anderson stepped in front of his student-athletes to attempt to light a spark and rally the Bobcats. Not only did Anderson's speech ignite the spark, but the Bobcat offense also went Katniss Everdeen on the Chanticleer defense and caught fire.
Texas State bounced back from a third set that saw the Bobcat hit .031 to .242, while capitalizing on six attack errors and five service errors from the Chanticleers to even the match at two sets apiece.
Jada Gardner (4),
Tessa Marshall (2),
Janell Fitzgerald (2) and
Lauren Teske (4) all recorded multiple kills for the Bobcats in the set.
Fitzgerald and Teske, both seniors playing in their final regular-season conference match, rode the momentum of the fourth set into the fifth as the two combined for seven of Texas State's 12 kills. As a team, the Bobcats hit a match-high .417 in the final set as fifth-year setter
Emily DeWalt recorded 11 of her match-high 45 assists in that set alone.
FROM HEAD COACH SEAN HUIET
"We talked earlier that we didn't want to be sitting at the airport saying, 'What if?' If JMU wins both, congratulations to them, but we didn't want to say what if and walk out of here with a loss and what we needed to happen happens. So, we talked a little bit about it, but didn't want to overtalk about it. Going into the fourth set, (assistant coach) Keith (Anderson) reminded them that we were playing for something. And that's how we started the fifth: we are playing for a championship; we said no what ifs."
FROM OUTSIDE HITTER LAUREN TESKE
"I just think we knew that Coastal (Carolina) wasn't going to just give it to us, so (Coach Huiet) just said we had to find a way no matter who was out on the court. Coastal is a really good team, so we knew we were going to be in for a challenge all weekend. But, through it all, it feels really good to have earned the win today going into the conference tournament next week."
STAT LEADERS
SCORES BY SET
- 1st | Texas State 25, Coastal Carolina 20
- 2nd | Coastal Carolina 25, Texas State 21
- 3rd | Coastal Carolina 25, Texas State 17
- 4th | Texas State 25, Coastal Carolina 22
- 5th | Texas State 15, Coastal Carolina 10
MATCH NOTES
- With Friday afternoon's match going five sets, it marked the fifth five-set conference match for the Bobcats this season, the most under third-year head coach Sean Huiet.
- Friday's match marked the first time the Texas State volleyball program has played in back-to-back regular-season five-set matches on back-to-back days since Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, 2018, when the Bobcats fell in five sets at Arkansas State before winning in five at Little Rock.
- With the win, Texas State has now won 14-or-more conference matches in a single season for the sixth consecutive season, including every season under head coach Sean Huiet.
- By finishing Friday's action with 18 kills and 12 digs, Jada Gardner recorded her first double-double on the season and third in her two-year Bobcat career. She becomes the sixth different Bobcat student-athlete to record a double-double this season joining Emily DeWalt, Janell Fitzgerald Caitlan Buettner, Maggie Walsh and Lauren Teske.
- Jacqueline Lee's 23 digs against the Chanticleer offense on Friday were tied for the second most by the sophomore in a single match this season. She had 23 digs at South Alabama on Oct. 21, 2022, before going for a career-high 32 the following night against the Jaguars on Oct. 22.
UP NEXT
- Texas State, which clinched the top seed out of the West Division for next week's Sun Belt Conference Championship with its win over Troy on Friday, Nov. 4, will now turn its attention to the league's postseason tournament. The Bobcats, which played for a conference championship last season, will attempt to reach the tournament's final match for the sixth consecutive season.
- Texas State (22-6, 14-2) will begin play in next week's conference tournament at 7:30 p.m. CT on Friday, Nov. 18 against the winner of a match between the East Division's fourth seed and West Division's fifth seed. That match is slated for 7:30 p.m. CT, Thursday, Nov. 17.
FOLLOW US
- For the latest information on the team, follow @TexasStateVball on Twitter, @TxStateVolleyball on Instagram and Facebook. General athletic news can also be at @TxStateBobcats on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
