COMMERCE, Texas – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) #2 Vaqueros volleyball team is heading to the Southland Conference (SLC) Championship match after sweeping the #6 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders Saturday in the tournament semifinals, 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-16), at East Texas A&M's The Field House.
The Vaqueros (22-7) will play either #1 Stephen F. Austin or #4 UIW on Sunday at 2 p.m. for the tournament title and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
UTRGV's middles dominated the match. Redshirt sophomore Harlingen High alum
Julianna Bryant led the team with 11 kills on .714 hitting with two blocks. Junior
Aaliyah Snead had nine kills on .438 hitting and a team-high tying four blocks while senior right side
Valentina Sarti Cipriani added nine kills on .389 hitting. Sophomore outside hitter
Martina Franco totaled a career-high tying four blocks with eight kills, six digs and two aces. Junior setter
Isabella Costantini finished with 35 assists, seven digs, four kills and two aces. Junior libero
Celianiz Cabranes recorded a match-high 18 digs with five assists.
The Vaqueros were efficient and smart with the attack, leading to an impressive .420 hitting percentage for the match. This was UTRGV's fifth match hitting over .400 this season.
The Islanders (13-17) were held to .152 hitting and didn't have any player reach double digit kills.
Kaitlyn Baumann led Corpus with seven kills on .500 hitting.
Virginia Van Der Werff totaled 29 assists with three aces. Libero
Brooklyn Jaeger had 12 digs.
UTRGV played electric volleyball to open the match with a 25-17 set win. The offense was versatile, with six different players recording at least two kills, led by four from Franco. But the real shining star was the defense. The Vaqueros were incredibly gritty, diving under tips and playing balls off the net to keep rallies alive and set up the offense. Cabranes had eight digs in the opening set and UTRGV totaled four blocks with three from Franco as they helped the defense limit the Islanders to .098 hitting.
The energy carried over to Set 2 as UTRGV opened on a 4-0 run. Snead was huge on the net, taking a lot of swings and getting hands on hits to force the Islanders into errors. Bryant threw down back-to-back kills on the slide and senior Sharyland Pioneer alum
Natalie Reyes served an ace to give the Vaqueros a 20-12 lead. Corpus came out of its timeout well and used a pair of scoring runs to trim UTRGV's lead to 23-21. Cipriani put down a clutch cross-court kill to secure the set win, 25-22.
The Vaqueros weren't affected by the Corpus push and completely dominated the third frame with their sights set on reaching the title match. Costantini served two consecutive aces to put the Vaqueros on top early, then Snead tabbed an assisted block and a kill to aid a 4-0 run that gave UTRGV a 13-8 lead. Franco went cross court and Cipriani powered through to have UTRGV rolling and up 20-12. Franco dropped back-to-back aces to get within two points of the win, then a service error by the Islanders sent UTRGV running onto the court in celebration after a 25-16 frame secured the sweep.
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