COLLEGE STATION, Texas \u2014 Cal Poly volleyball continued its season-opening road trip with a hard-fought three-set loss to No. 8 Texas A&M on Saturday night at Reed Arena, falling 24-26, 15-25, 23-25.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs (1-1) pushed the Aggies (3-2) to the limit in the first and third sets but could not overcome a dominant second frame from the home side, which hit .333 on the night to secure the sweep.<\/p>\n
Pin hitters Emma Fredrick and Kendall Beshear again recorded double-digit kills with 12 apiece. Fredrick committed just three errors to post a team-high .360 hitting percentage. Beshear, showcasing her trademark two-way game, added four digs and tied with Chloe Leluge for the team lead with four total blocks.<\/p>\n
Kayla Murdoch and Breklyn Pulling each contributed three blocks, while Elif Hurriyet collected a team-leading 13 digs, marking another double-digit performance for the junior libero.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs came out swinging, hitting .244 as a team and taking an early 7-5 lead behind kills from Fredrick and Beshear. Cal Poly extended its advantage to 15-12, but Texas A&M answered with a 5-1 run to tie it at 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The set, easily the tightest of the match, featured 12 ties and four lead changes. The Aggies took a 24-22 lead on a kill by Natalie Ring, and although the Mustangs fought off two set points to knot the score at 24 on another Fredrick kill, Texas A&M closed out the frame on back-to-back points to win 26-24.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs never found their rhythm in the second set, hitting just .103 with eight kills and five errors. The Aggies raced to a 15-10 lead, and though Cal Poly cut the deficit to two on a 4-1 run, Texas A&M regrouped and closed the set with a seven-point spurt to win 25-15.<\/p>\n
Head coach Caroline Walters\u2019 squad looked rejuvenated in the third set, which featured six more ties and five lead changes. The Mustangs opened the frame with a 4-0 run and later extended their lead to 10\u20136 before the Aggies responded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas A&M nabbed its first lead of the set at 12-11 and held off a surging Cal Poly squad to take the set 25-23 and match sweep.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly wraps up its Texas road swing tomorrow with a noon neutral-site match against reigning Sun Belt champions Arkansas State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE STATION, Texas \u2014 Cal Poly volleyball continued its season-opening road trip with a hard-fought three-set loss to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-420839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}