Aggies improve to 3-0 by virtue of 3-0 victory over Corpus on Monday
Home, sweet home.
That’s how Reed Arena felt on Labor Day for Texas A&M, where the Aggies captured their third consecutive win to begin 2024 in a Monday sweep of Texas A&M Corpus-Christi.
“I was just really fired up by what I had in here, and the idea of this place is starting to come to fruition,” head coach Jamie Morrison said postgame. “I’m proud of that the most.”
That comment referred to the crowd of 2,492 that chose to spend the holiday watching a dominant A&M volleyball team.
The Aggies rewarded those fans with their second sweep of the season, downing the Islanders 3-0 (26-24, 25-11, 25-22).
After a rough start where the A&M faced deficits of 11-6, 18-13 and 20-15 in the opening set, the Ags rebounded by scoring six unanswered points to take a 21-20 lead.
An 11-4 run put A&M in front as it took a second set point to seal the 26-24 win in an extremely entertaining display of volleyball.
The Aggies racked up 17 kills in that frame to go along with 16 assists and two solo blocks, both off the hands of junior outside hitter Emily Hellmuth.
Junior middle blocker Ifenna Cos-Okpalla led the way with five kills, and she also tallied a pair of block assists as well.
“We started off a little off, I think, in the first set, but we fought back as a team,” Logan Lednicky said. “We get put under pressure in practice like that, and we executed just how we did on a normal day.”
Lednicky tallied a dozen kills in the match.
While the junior opposite is no stranger to high kill outputs, sophomore middle blocker Morgan Perkins entered Monday with just 13 total kills on the year.
She nearly matched that by matching Lednicky for the match-high.
“I’ve been working on my transitioning at practice a lot,” Perkins said. “Me and Maddie [Waak] have already had that natural connection coming from club, so I’m just really grateful for her.”
A&M played more like themselves in the second set, as the Aggies crushed the Islanders with a dominant 25-11 performance, which saw Perkins knock down five kills and record an ace.
The final set of the day resulted in a 25-22 Aggie win.
A&M jumped out to a 16-8 lead, but Morrison was forced to call a timeout after the Islanders cut A&M’s advantage to 19-16.
The Aggies got it together and matched every Islander point to get the win and move to 3-0.
“Coming off this summer, I think this is the closest team I’ve ever been a part of in my three years here,” Lednicky said. “It’s just super fun getting to go out there with your best friends, and knowing they have your backs on and off the court, I think that plays into our success that we’ve had on the court so far. It just makes it a whole lot of fun.”
After a perfect three matches in a four-day span, the Aggies will get some much-needed rest.
Up next, A&M is set to host the Texas State Bobcats on Friday at Reed Arena. First serve is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.
