COMMERCE– The Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team picked up its fifth consecutive win with a 3-1 victory over Western New Mexico on Saturday. The set scores were 30-28, 25-16, 17-25 and 25-16.
 
The win brings the Lions to 11-7 on the season and 6-2 in the Lone Star Conference. The Mustangs fall to 4-12 and 4-4 in conference play.
 
The Lions will return to the court Friday to face West Texas A&M That game will be played at The Box in Canyon. The team will then face UT Permian Basin on Saturday at 1 p.m. in Odessa.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
- Jaslyn Wacker led the Lions with 16 kills on a .367 hitting percentage. She also had five blocks in the match.
- Layne Little had 12 kills in the match. She also had eight digs.
- Shelley Chapron had nine kills and five blocks.
- Mariyah Oliver had eight kills, Jaryn Wacker had seven and Neka Nelson had five kills. Sydney Reyes had two kills and Chassidy Hill had a kill.
-Savannah Rutledge led the team with 22 digs, also chipping in seven assists. Lacie Jessup had 11 digs.
- Rylie Fuentes led the team with 27 assists while Gabriela Rosa added 22 assists.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The first set was an evenly matched battle. Both teams traded rallies. Nelson and Jaslyn Wacker both had multiple kills early for A&M-Commerce. Nelson and Wacker had four kills each in the set. Little and Jaryn Wacker also made impacts, tallying five and four kills respectively in the first set. The set went to extra points as neither team would give up a two-point lead late. However, the Lions were able to get two kills from Jaryn Wacker to end the set at 30-28.
 
After trading the first 14 points of the second set, the Lions went on a rally to build a lead. Four consecutive attack errors from WNMU helped the Lions build their lead to 7-13 halfway through the set. The Lions continued to build their lead, jumping up to a 10-point advantage at one point in the set. They took the second set 25-16.
 
The Mustangs came out firing after halftime to take the first six points of the third set. Halfway through the set, WNMU led 13-6. The Lions attempted to fight back, taking six of the next eight points to cut the lead to just three points. But the deficit was too much to overcome and the Lions fell 17-25 in the third set.
 
The Lions regrouped in the fourth set, taking four of the first five points and seven of the first nine. The Wacker sisters continued to rack up kills in the fourth set as the Lions took a 13-5 lead midway through the fourth set. The Lions built their lead to nine before WNMU scored four points in a row to close the gap. Lions responded with a five-point run of their own to build their largest lead of the entire match, a 23-12 lead. The Lions took the final set 25-16.