COMMERCE – The East Texas A&M University volleyball team ended the regular season with a 3-0 sweep over the New Orleans Privateers as part of Senior Day at the Hunt Regional Healthcare Court in the Field House via set scores of 25-13, 25-10, and 25-22, on Saturday morning.
 
The Lions finished the regular season with a record of 10-18 overall and 7-10 in conference play. The win helped the Lions clinched a spot into the conference tournament next week in Hammond, Louisiana, at Southeastern. The final seedings will be determined following all the completion of all matches on Saturday. East Texas A&M will play in the postseason for the 13^th year in a row.
 
SENIOR DAY
Saturday was also Senior Day for the Lions, who honored their six seniors as well as student manager Jenson McTee. The six seniors honored were Carley Spachman (Leewood, Kan.), Fiona Arnold (Herzberg, Germany), Reese Fetty (Farmersville), Jade Smith (Houston – Mayde Creek), Kaitlyn Breland (Magnolia West), and Millie Allgood (Sherwood, Ark.).
 
The first three points of the match went to the Lions, who did not trail again in the first set. UNO tied the set at seven, but the next 10 points went to the Lions, who closed out the set on an attacking error. East Texas A&M hit .324 in the first set.
 
The Lions continued their run in the second set, winning four of the first points of the second set, leading for the entirety of the second set, hitting .414 percent in the set with 14 kills and two errors, taking it 25-10.
 
The third set was tightly contested to start with UNO leading 5-4, but the next four points went to the Lions, who used another 6-0 run and led 15-8, and built out a 19-10 lead, but the Privateers made things interesting with a 5-1 run late, but the Lions needed just one more point to win the set and they did on a kill by Spachman, who led the team with nine kills in her final match at home.
 
Ellie Baumert (Dodge, Neb.) totaled 28 assists and 11 digs for a double-double and served up two aces as well. Smith picked up 15 digs and five assists. Fetty had eight digs and five kills. The Lions hit .282 in the match.

POST MATCH INTERVIEW