Nov. 17, 2007

Box Score

KEARNEY, Neb. - The No. 10 West Texas A&M Lady Buffs, seeded second in the NCAA Division II Southwest Regionals, improved to 34-7 on the season as they beat the sixth-seeded Metro State Roadrunners, 3-1 (30-25, 31-33, 30-20, 30-21) in the semifinal match on Saturday evening. Sophomore Melissa Harper paced the Lady Buffs with 19 kills while sophomore Laura Prinsen had 15 kills and 10 digs and sophomore Natalie Johnson tallied 11 kills and four digs.

Sophomore setter Katie Rickwartz collected 49 assists and 10 digs while junior libero Sara Contreras played strongly in the back as she notched 30 digs. Freshman Lauren Thedford also contributed with six kills, 16 digs and two assists.

Game one was tight with several lead changes early on before Rickwartz put down an important kill that gave the Lady Buffs the lead at 17-16. WTAMU went on to win by a 30-25 margin as Prinsen recorded eight kills and Harper had four, while Johnson ended the first game with three. Rickwartz dished out 18 assists and Contreras notched seven digs in back. West Texas A&M also benefited from three ball handling errors by Metro State's setter, Stephanie Levi.

Metro State capitalized on seven WTAMU errors and jumped out to a 16-11 lead in game two, forcing a WT time out, then went on a four-point run to make it 20-11. West Texas A&M came back to tie it at 24-24 with the help of three consecutive kills from Harper followed by three consecutive Metro State errors, but the Roadrunners regained momentum to outlast the Lady Buffs and win, 33-31. Harper added seven kills to her match total while Johnson and Prinsen each notched three more.

West Texas A&M dominated game three by taking the lead from the get go and rolling to a 30-20 victory. Harper led with five kills and Rickwartz tallied 14 assists while Contreras again was solid with seven digs as the Lady Buffs held the Roadrunners to a paltry .044 hitting percentage. Lakatos notched two kills and combined with Harper, Rickwartz and Johnson to thwart the Metro State attack with six total blocks.

The Lady Buffs rolled with their momentum from game three to take control of the match and win game four, 30-21. WTAMU recorded four total blocks in the game, including a block assist by Rickwartz and Harper followed by a service ace from Prinsen that hit the net and toppled over to make it 18-11 in favor of the Lady Buffs. With Prinsen serving towards the end of the match, Rickwartz and Harper put down kills and an attack error by Metro State's Kelsey Ellis sealed the win for West Texas A&M.

WTAMU advances to the Southwest Regional final set to tip off on Sunday at 3 p.m.; the Lady Buffs will face the winner of the regional tournament's other semifinal match between fourth-seeded Central Oklahoma and top-seeded host Nebraska Kearney, set to begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night.