LAWTON, Okla.– The Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team swept Cameron University on Friday evening. The set scores were 25-14, 25-19, and 25-19.
 
The win brings the Lions to 12-4 on the season and 6-1 in the Lone Star Conference. The win also brings the Lions to 3-0 in their division. The Aggies fall to 5-11 and 1-4 in conference play.
 
The Lions return to action on Saturday as they will face Arkansas-Fort Smith on the road. The match will be played 1 p.m. at the Stubblefield Center.
 
HEAD COACH CRAIG CASE AFTER THE MATCH
- Overall thoughts on the match: "The biggest thing today, especially against a team that is really good in their gym, I thought we did a really good job of stopping them from going on runs. Once we started doing that, that gave us some good opportunities to score. Defensively, answering their energy with our play, allowed us to stop them from going on runs. That was the big thing early."
- On the hitting success in the match: "I thought we passed the ball pretty well. Our first contact quality was pretty good. And I thought both our hitters and our setters were really working well in transition. I thought everybody was playing hard and doing what they were supposed to do. When those things line up, we are in pretty good shape."
- On getting such high kill numbers in first two sets: "19 kills in one set is pretty crazy. To follow that up with 18 in the second set, that is really good. I thought that was due to our first contacts and our setters efforts to get our hitters in the right spots to make those plays."
- On Shelley Chapron's night: "She was really good tonight. Sometimes we take it for granted. We get to watch her play every night and you just don't get to see a lot of hitters like her. I was really pleased with how she came out. She was prepared and focused and after that, it was just a matter of us getting her the ball in situations where she could score."
- On Bina Njikam's performance: "I thought Bina played really well. We moved her around a lot tonight. She was hitting from a lot of different angles. And that is hard for some hitters to adjust to. She did a great job, both offensively and defensively on the net. That's the kind of performance we like to see out of her."
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
- Shelley Chapron (Houston, St. Pius X) led the Lions with 12 kills, hitting an astounding .800 in the match. She also had a pair of aces and four blocks.
- Bina Njikam (Keller) had 11 kills in the match, hitting .375. She also had five blocks.
- Destiny Greenwood (Fairfield, Calif.) had nine kills, hitting .533 in the match. She also led the team with six blocks. Sydney Andersen (Placentia, Calif.) also had nine kills in the match.
- Celeste Vela (Guadalajara, Mexico) led the offense with 27 assists, while also recording eight digs and three aces. Natalie Sarbeck (Cypress – Cy-Fair) added 17 assists.
- Savannah Rutledge (The Woodlands – College Park) led the defense with 11 digs, while Riley Davidson (Commerce) had seven. The Lion defense held Cameron to a .177 hitting percentage, forcing 16 attack errors.
- The Lions as a team hit .438, setting a season-high hitting percentage. Of their 75 points scored, 48 came from kills. The team also had eight aces and 10 blocks.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The team traded points early before the Lions began a run that gave them the momentum, scoring nine of 11 points to take a 13-5 lead. Chapron caught fire late in the set, recording four consecutive kills, as well as a block, as the Lions went on a 5-0 run to pull even further away. Chapron hit .857 in the set, leading the team with six kills. The team as a whole hit .515 in the first set, and had 19 kills in the set, winning the set 25-14.
 
It was a back and forth beginning to the second set, as neither team led by more than two points through the early portion. Andersen had the hot hand for the Lions early, recording four kills in their first five points. Trailing 8-7, the Lions went on to score six of the next eight points to take a 13-10 lead at the midway mark. The Lions began to pull away even more, going on a 5-2 run to take a five-point lead. The Lions won the set 25-19. Andersen had six kills in the set, while the Lions as a whole recorded 18 kills while hitting .485.
 
After the Aggies took three of the first four points of the set, the Lions responded with a 6-0 run, including two solo blocks for Chapron to give them a 7-3 lead. After the Aggies stemmed the tide, Chapron had a kill followed by consecutive aces to give the Lions a 12-7 lead at the midway mark of the set. Vela also had consecutive aces as the Lions began to pull away. The Lions led by as many as 12 in the set. Cameron made a late run, scoring nine of 11 points to cut the Lion lead to just five points. However, the Lions held on, winning the set 25-19 to sweep the match.