The No. 9 West Texas A&M Lady Buffs are headed to the NCAA Division II National Championship match for the fifth time in school history after defeating Missouri-St. Louis in four sets on Friday night. The Lady Buffs will face the No. 1 seed Concordia-St. Paul.
THE MATCH
#9 West Texas A&M 3, Missouri-St. Louis 1 (25-23, 25-21, 23-25, 25-23)
THE RECORDS
- #9 West Texas A&M 32-4 (16-0 LSC)
- Missouri-St. Louis (25-7, 12-1 GLVC)
Set 1
The opening set saw five lead changes with 12 ties as the Lady Buffs claimed set one, 25-23, to the lead over the Tritons in the semifinal match. WT hit .188 in the match opener with 18 kills on 48 attempts with nine errors to go along with 19 digs, 18 assists, three blocks and a lone ace from Ainsley Malis. The Tritons hit .179 with 12 kills on 39 swings with five errors, 11 assists, 18 digs, and five blocks.
SET 2
After falling behind 6-2 in the second set, WT chipped its way to even the set 12-12 before breaking away with a 25-21 set victory to lead the match, 2-0. The Lady Buffs hit .234 in the second with 17 kills on 47 swings with six errors while limiting the Tritons to hit just .104 with 12 kills on 48 swings. The Lady Buffs had 25 digs with 15 assists and four blocks along with Bryli Contreras' aces.
SET 3
The Lady Buffs led off the third set with a 3-0 lead before the Tritons fought their way to a 25-23 set victory to make it a 2-1 match. WT and UMSL were nearly evenly matched with the Lady Buffs hitting .235 to the Tritons .228. The Lady Buffs had 17 kills on 51 swings and three blocks while UMSL had 18 kills on 57 swings with five blocks as each team recorded five attack errors.
SET 4
The final set saw another battle in the war for ticket to the National Championship match. The Tritons grabbed a 5-2 lead before a service error ignited a 5-point run to give the Lady Buffs the lead. WT kept the foot on the gas as they extended their lead out to 18-14 before Tritons brought the set within one from a kill from Hailey Flowers. WT punched its ticket with a double block from All-American honorees Taytum Stow and Torrey Miller.
THE NUMBERS
WT hit .229 overall in the semifinal match with 68 kills on 192 swings with 24 errors to go along with 62 assists, a season-high 98 digs, 14 blocks and three aces. Missouri-St. Louis ended the season hitting .158 with 56 kills on 196 swings with 25 errors, 90 digs, 52 assists, 11 blocks and five aces.
Torrey Miller led the night with a match-high 22 kills on 54 swings with six error to hit .296 to go along with 13 digs for her 12th double-double of the season. Blair Moreland paced the offense with 29 assists while Bryli Contreras had two aces with a career-high 37 digs. LSC Defensive Player of the Year Taytum Stow had a career-high 11 blocks in the victory.
Two players reached 18 kills for the Tritons with All-American Charlotte Richards and Hailey Flowers while Richards had two aces. Caitlin Bishop produced a match-high 48 assists while Kylie Adams had 29 digs and Hannah Copeland had eight blocks.
THE MILESTONES
- WT will make the first National Championship appearance since 2009
- The Lady Buffs continue their postseason run moving to 57-25 overall during the NCAA Tournament and move on to their fifth NCAA National Championship, first under Kendra Potts
- Kendra Potts, the AVCA National Coach of the Year, moves to 8-2 in the NCAA Tournament with an 90-10 career record for an incredible winning percentage of 90%
- Potts becomes the fifth head coach to lead WT to the final Division II match of the season joining Kim Hudson, Jim Giacomazzi, Debbie Hendricks, and Jason Skoch
- Miller now has 12 double-doubles on the season: 47th career
- Ainsley Malis registered her eighth double-double of the season with 22 assists and 12 digs
- Stow becomes the first player to reach over 10 blocks in a single match since Destiny Jones in 2018 against Texas A&M-Kingsville
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