Wildcats back on road

ACU to play at TSU, TAMK in pair of LSC South matches

STEPHENVILLE -- Now the hard part begins for the ACU Wildcats as they must put lastweekend's two physically and emotionally draining wins over West Texas A&M and Eastern New Mexico behind them and focus on the rest of the Lone Star Conference season.

The rest of the LSC South Division awaits the Wildcats, and that begins Thursday at 7 p.m. when they go to Stephenville to take on an improving Tarleton State squad.  The Wildcats will then play at Texas A&M-Kingsville at 2 p.m. Saturday in Kingsville.  Those two conference matches are part of a long stretch of road matches for the Wildcats, who began the stretch Tuesday night with a 3-1 loss Tuesday night at NAIA powerhouse Lubbock Christian, snapping the Wildcats' 10-match losingg streak.

ACU will play St. Edward's at home next Tuesday, then will play their final three road matches of the season, and they're all huge.  First up is an Oct. 14 match at Angelo State, followed the next weekend with matches at Eastern New Mexico and West Texas A&M, both of which are sure to have revenge on their mind after ACU beat them both (3-0 over West Texas A&M and 3-2 over ENMU) last weekend at Moody Coliseum.

The Wildcats -- who received six votes in this week's American Volleyball Coaches' Association top 25 poll and are ranked a solid No. 4 in the initial NCAA Division II Southwest Region poll of the season -- have won 13 of their last 15 to improve to 16-6 overall.  During their 10-match winning streak that ended Tuesday night, the Wildcats lost just four games, and two of those came in the win over the Zias of ENMU.  ACU, in fact, has won 11 of its 16 matches by 3-0 scores this season.

The Wildcats have been led by junior outside hitter Michelle Bernhardt, who has 345 kills on the season, while junior middle blocker Amanda Slate is second in the LSC in hitting percentage at .339 to go along with 265 kills.  Junior hitter Ashlee Motola has 163 kills, while junior setter Lindsey Martin -- named on Tuesday as the LSC South Division Setter of the Week for the second time this season -- has 965 assists on the season.  She has almost 80 more total assists than the second-place setter in the LSC, and her 12.70 assist-per-game average is more than .25 assists better than the next-best average (12.43).