ABILENE, Texas \u2013\u00a0The UNT volleyball team opened its 2026 season with a four-set victory (30-28, 25-14, 20-25, 25-20) over CSU Bakersfield Friday night at the ACU Invitational.<\/p>\n
“Got the first one under our belt,” head coach Dave Fleming<\/a> said. “It was a good team win. We played a little tight, like it was our first match in a while. Jahniya Jackson<\/a> stepped up and played great, as did Alessandra Romo<\/a> and Dakota Mitchell<\/a>.”<\/p>\n The North Texas offense was led by Jahniya Jackson<\/a> and Reagan Bedell<\/a>, who racked up 15 and 12 kills apiece. Fellow outside hitter Jocelyn Jourdan<\/a> also shined in her Mean Green debut as she added eight kills, including the first-set winner, on a team-best .261 hitting percentage.<\/p>\n At the setter position, Sidney Soria<\/a> collected her seventh double-double ever with a career-high 33 assists and 10 digs while freshman Olivia Branum<\/a> contributed a 15-assist, 14-dig double-double in her first collegiate action.<\/p>\n Receiving the start at libero was Alessandra Romo<\/a>, who held the down the back row defense and set a career-high of 20 digs. At the net, middle blocker Addison Achilles<\/a> completed the night with five kills and six total blocks, good for the second-best total of her career.<\/p>\n Friday’s action began with a thrilling opening set in which UNT held a 24-17 lead before the Roadrunners rattled off eight consecutive points to extend the set. North Texas ultimately regained its footing to pull out the 30-28 victory, which marked the program’s first time scoring 30 points in a set since 2024.<\/p>\n UNT then took control of the match when it dominated the second set, 25-14. CSU Bakersfield rallied to capture the third set, but it was not enough as the Mean Green slammed the door with a 25-20 win in the fourth.<\/p>\n North Texas concludes play at the ACU Invitational Saturday with a doubleheader against Lamar and host Abilene Christian. The first match starts at 1 p.m., while the finale is scheduled for 5 p.m. and will be available for streaming on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABILENE, Texas \u2013\u00a0The UNT volleyball team opened its 2026 season with a four-set victory (30-28, 25-14, 20-25, 25-20)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-447005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}