Giving up extended point runs has plagued the Fort Lewis College volleyball team all season.
The Skyhawks dug themselves into too deep of holes in the final three sets of a 3-1 (21-25, 25-20, 25-18, 25-23) loss to Western New Mexico University on Saturday at Whalen Gymnasium.
Lindley Gallegos staked the Skyhawks to a 5-0 lead at the start of the first set with two of her match-high three aces.
“The first game, I felt we really owned that based on serving,” FLC head coach Kelley Rifilato said. “If you look at the other stats, they’re kind of neck and neck.”
Neither team hit above .100 in the first set, and both squads made at least six hitting errors.
Western N.M. (6-11, 3-7 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) bounced back in the second set and controlled most of the third set, hitting .367 in that set.
Mustangs’ head coach Jim Callender’s secret?
“Put all subs in,” he said. “(Friday night) was a hard match; we lost in five sets at Colorado Mesa. Some of the kids from (Friday) night were a little fatigued.”
Heather Verrill had plenty of spring in her step, leading the Mustangs with 12 kills and a .688 hitting percentage.
FLC (5-13, 2-8 RMAC) trailed 20-14 in the fourth when the Mustangs’ Morgan Lyneis injured her right knee and needed to be helped off the court.
The Skyhawks battled to within two points, fighting off three match points along the way, before the Mustangs ended the match by hitting off the FLC block out of bounds.
FLC had been blocking effectively all match with 10 team blocks across four sets.
“It shows we do have a lot more potential, and we can grow toward the future in these next few games and really push from the beginning rather than playing catch-up at the end,” FLC setter Heather Danny said of the team’s ability to keep battling near the end of tight sets.
Danny led the team with 25 assists and got most of them after the Skyhawks shifted from a 6-2 formation to a more traditional 5-1 where Danny does all of the setting.
That freed up FLC sophomore Maddi Bickle to play from antenna to antenna, where she picked up seven kills and seven blocks.
Senior Ashley Wells led the Skyhawks with a match-high 19 kills and dug 16 balls for the double-double.
The Skyhawks will make a quick road trip for their next game to face No. 17 Colorado Mesa at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Grand Junction before returning home for three in a row.
The Skyhawks currently sit 12th out of 14 teams in the RMAC standings with eight matches left until the RMAC tournament.
Only the top eight seeds will qualify for the league’s postseason tournament.
“I think we just need to learn how to finish, honestly,” Bickle said. “Everything’s there, we just need to stop simple runs and learn how to put the ball away when we need to.”
kgrabowski@ durangoherald.com
