CANYON – Tarleton State swept its way into the LSC Championship Tournament semifinal round by knocking off Texas A&M-Kingsville in straight sets Thursday night.
 
This completes a three-game season sweep of Texas A&M-Kingsville by Tarleton. The TexAnns did not surrender a set to the Javelinas all season, sweeping all three meetings. This win also vaults the TexAnns into the semifinal round for the sixth time in 10 tournament trips.
 
Kenya Alexander and Hailey Roberts, who claimed the Defensive Player and Freshman of the year awards in the Lone Star Conference less than 24 hours before match time, got the TexAnns started with back-to-back kills that started a 5-1 push out of the gate for Tarleton.
 
After Kingsville clawed back to make it a one-point game, Kaitlyn White landed a kill shot that sparked a 9-4 Tarleton run to expand the lead to 17-11 and force a Kingsville timeout.
 
Out of the break, Tarleton's opening-set dominance continued as they kept Kingsville from scoring consecutive points down the stretch en route to the 25-16 win in set one.
 
The teams battled for momentum over the first 19 points of the second set with Tarleton holding a slim 10-9 lead.
 
Roberts answered the call, however, as she landed three straight kills off passes from Emily Medlin to stretch the lead to 13-9 and force a Kingsville timeout. Out of the break, Tarleton tacked on two more to extend it 15-9.
 
The Javelinas would turn the tide, however, with a late 15-9 surge to even the set at 24-24 and force extra points. The teams traded points to keep it 25-25 but another Roberts kill and a Kingsville error gave Tarleton a 27-25 win and a 2-0 match lead.
 
With Kingsville on the brink of elimination, the teams traded points over the first 42 points with neither team building more than a four-point lead at any point through a 21-21 tie.
 
In a 'first-to-four' mentality, the TexAnns got the first of their needed four points on a block from Kelsey Raglin and Kenya Alexander and then got two kills from Roberts and a game-ending error from Kingsville to secure the win.
 
Tarleton dominated the game offensively, hitting .423 as a team which is the fifth-highest hitting percentage in a match in school history and the highest hitting percentage in a postseason game. Tarleton landed 50 kills and made just nine errors in 97 total attacks.
 
The TexAnns had three players with at least a .400 hitting percentage, including Roberts who landed 20 kills and made just one error on 30 attacks with a .633 hitting percentage. Her .633 percentage is the sixth-highest individual performance in school history.
 
White hit .526 with 11 kills and just one error on 19 attacks while Raglin landed seven kills on 17 attacks with no errors for a .412 hitting percentage.
 
Both Emily Medlin (24) and Chandler Gow (20) topped the 20-assist mark en route to a combined 44 assists on the night while Katie Covell led the team with 13 digs.
 
The TexAnns will meet the winner of West Texas A&M and Texas A&M-Commerce tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at The Box in Canyon.