DENTON – The Texas A&M-Commerce University volleyball team split its matches on the second day of the Hilton Garden Inn Classic at Texas Woman's University on Saturday, taking a five-set win over Newman before dropping a four-set match to Harding.
 
The Lions went 3-1 on the weekend and won the first three matches of the season for the first time since 2013. A&M-Commerce will next be in action at the Tarleton Invitational next weekend.
 
"I thought we did some good things this weekend against some really good competition and I'm happy we came out 3-1," said Texas A&M-Commerce head coach Craig Case. "We were able to pick up some good wins and identify some things we need to work on before we get into conference play. I'm happy with how we played overall this weekend, we just have to figure out how to execute better in tough situations than we did on the second day of the tournament."
 
TEXAS A&M-COMMERCE 3, NEWMAN 2 (25-12, 25-17, 21-25, 21-25, 17-15)
- Layne Little led three Lions in double-digit kills with 17 kills and a .333 hitting percentage.
- Taryn Driver added 13 kills and Daisge Smith had a double-double with 12 kills and 14 digs.
- The Lions put up 16 blocks in the marathon match, led by Sydney Reyes with eight stops.
- Ashley Mireles dug out 37 balls, including eight digs in the fifth set.
 
The Lions rolled in the opening two sets of the day, outhitting the Jets by big margins in each frame. The Lions had sideout percentages of 83 and 77 percent in those frames.
 
Newman made adjustments to come back with wins in the third and fourth sets, outhitting the Lions in each frame to tie up the match.
 
A&M-Commerce scored the first three points of the tiebreaking set and were up 13-9 before Newman stormed back to tie the set at 14-all. The Jets had match point at 15-14 before the Lions scored the final three points of the match to clinch it thanks to a Reyes block and a Little kill.
 
HARDING 3, TEXAS A&M-COMMERCE 1 (21-15, 25-20, 20-25, 23-25)
- The Lions were led by 17 kills on a .417 percentage by Driver.
- Reyes had 10 kills and five blocks.
- Mireles had 25 digs, followed by Smith with 22 digs.
- Rylie Fuentes had a double-double with 25 assists and 16 digs.
 
The Lady Bisons took advantage of Lions' inaccuracy in the contest, as A&M-Commerce had 12 more hitting errors than their opposition in the match.
 
Driver was on fire in the opening set with six errorless kills on eight swings, while Mireles had 10 digs. A 4-1 Harding run in the middle of the set pushed the Lady Bisons ahead and the Lions were unable to recover.
 
In the second set, A&M-Commerce responded with a mid-set run of its own on Lacie Jessup's serve. The Lions scored six straight points to go up by a 12-7 margin. Harding responded to get within one point at 21-20, but the Lions scored the final four points of the set to tie the match, with a Jaslyn Wacker ace and a Reyes kill closing things out.
 
The Lions hit only .057 in the third set, while Harding hit .290. The A&M-Commerce errors provided too much to overcome in the 25-20 set win for the opposition.
 
Harding went on a run in the middle of the fourth set as well, going up by six points at 14-8. The Lions chipped away at the advantage and a Smith kill made it a 21-20 Harding lead.  A Little kill tied the set at 23-all, but Harding closed the match out with two straight points.