COMMERCE – Friday night's match at the Field House went the distance between the Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team and Arkansas-Fort Smith. The A&M-Commerce Lions prevailed 15-5 in the deciding set.
 
With 12 digs on Friday night, Riley Davidson (Commerce) passed the 1,000 career digs mark with all 1,009 coming for the Lions. Celeste Vela (Guadalajara, Mexico) picked up 59 assists on Friday, which is her career-high, while Maddy Rashford (Placentia, Calif.) recorded career-high 19 kills.

"Everything that we focused on coming into the match, we did tonight," said coach Craig Case. We went up against a really good team led by legendary coach and to beat them in five is a great sign and we can definitely build off that. I am really proud of our team with how they responded in the fifth set." 
 
Arkansas-Fort Smith claimed the first set by a score of 25-23. A&M-Commerce was up early in the set, 7-2 and maintained a 19-13 lead. Arkansas won four of the next five pints to make it 20-17 and closed the set out on a 4-1 run. The Arkansas-Fort Smith Lions recorded a hitting percentage of .171 on Friday night and fall to 6-7 on the season, 1-4 in Lone Star Conference play.
 
The second set was dominated by A&M-Commerce early on but Arkansas-Fort Smith tied it at 14. The A&M-Commerce Lions pulled away in the set with a 3-0 run to take a 21-17 lead and won the set, 25-20 on a kill by Rashford.
 
The A&M-Commerce Lions led 15-12 in the third set and closed it out on a 10-0 run to win the set, 25-12. The Lions took the set on two-straight attacking errors and move to 3-6 on the season overall and 2-3 in conference play.
 
Looking to win its second match in a row, A&M-Commerce led 19-12 in the fourth set and was four points away from winning the match in four, but Arkansas-Fort Smith stormed back with an 8-0 run. The Lions recovered to fight off the first set point but fell 26-24 in the set to go the distance.
 
The Lions led wire-to-wire in the fifth set and opened up a 7-1 lead at the midway point. They claimed their second-straight win with a 15-5 fifth set win on a kill by Rashford.
 
Nicki Gonelli (Round Rock – Stony Point), Essence Allen (Longview – Tatum), and Maiya Dickie (Huntsville) had double-digit kills to join Rashford. Gonelli had 17, Allen had 12, and Dickie had 12.
 
Playing as the libero, Lyric Hebert (Arvada, Colo.) picked up 20 digs and four aces. Ashley Pennington (Frisco – Liberty) had 17 digs, Vela had 13, Allen had 11, and Davidson had 12.
 
As a team, A&M-Commerce hit .241 in the match.
 
UP NEXT
The Lions remain home to host Oklahoma Christian on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The originally scheduled time of 1 p.m. has been pushed back to 1:30 p.m.