CHICAGO — The Chicago State women's volleyball team (0-8, 0-8 WAC) lost, 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-22), to New Mexico State (15-1, 15-1 WAC) Tuesday afternoon at the Jones Convocation Center.
The Aggies continued their theme of scoring first and jumped out to a 4-0 lead before a
Yanlis Feliz kill put the Cougars on the board.
Nailah Jones followed with a kill to cut the NMSU lead to 4-2. The Aggies scored four of the next five points to extend the lead to five, 8-3. At that point, the Cougars went on a 7-3 run of their own on kills by Jones, a pair by
Berenice Almeyda and Feliz and a service ace by
Grace Zambrano. The lead was then Aggies 11-10 for the Aggies. NMSU extended it to 16-12 before Almeyda tallied three kills in a run where the Cougars tied the match for the first time, 17-17. Feliz recorded a pair of kills but with the score again knotted, this time at 21-21, the Aggies scored the match's final four points for a 25-21 win.
For the sixth consecutive set over two days, New Mexico State jumped out to a lead in the second, leaving the Cougars to once again play catch-up. CSU cut the advantage to 4-3 on a Jones kill before the Aggies scored six of the next eight to increase the lead to 10-5. CSU pulled to within three, 10-7, following an Aggies service error and attack error but they would get no closer in the second set. NMSU extended their advantage to seven, 17-10, the largest of the set. The Aggies won the second set, 25-19.
Three Cougars kills, two by Jones and one by Feliz, sparked a 3-2 CSU lead to start the third set. The Aggies countered before another Jones kill and an Aggies attack error and bad set put the Cougars back out front, 6-4. Chicago State extended its lead to 9-5 on kills by Jones,
Paule Caneac and a NMSU attack error. The Aggies scored the next four to tie the score, 9-9. However, a
Mesalina Severino kill capped a three-point run, and the Cougars led, 12-9.
New Mexico State again countered, this time scoring five consecutive points, to take a 14-12 advantage. The teams then dueled evenly and, with NMSU leading 19-17, the Cougars reeled off three consecutive points — two kills by Jones and one by
Maria Lopez Torres Tapia — to take a 20-19 lead. The Aggies then scored six of the final eight points of the match to win the set 25-22 and the match 3-0.
Nailah Jones led the Cougars with 11 kills, followed by Feliz with 10 and Almeyda with five.
Today's match was the final of the regular season. New Mexico State secured the top seed in the Western Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament, which scheduled for April 1-3 in Orem, Utah. Chicago State is No. 5 and will face No. 4 seed UTRGV on Thursday, April 1 at 4 p.m. The winner of that match will face the Aggies in the second semifinal on Friday, April 2 at 5 p.m.
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