Box Score STEPHENVILLE – After falling behind 0-2 to begin the afternoon, Tarleton State's seniors led a furious rally to bring the TexAnns back and defeat the No. 17 Angelo State Rambelles in an epic, five-set thriller Saturday in Wisdom Gym.
Jazmine Green and
Stacie Murrah's 20 and 18 kill efforts, respectively, coupled with a 46-assist, 14-dig double-double from
Danielle Barker and a 25-dig outing from
Emily Klein, who suffered an injury early in the second set, paced the TexAnns to their first win over the Rambelles since 2006 and secured at least the No. 5 seed for Tarleton in next week's LSC Championship Tournament.
The rally started in the third set, after the opening two sets went all Angelo's way.
Neither team was able to break away through the first 36 points as the game was in an 18-18 tie, but an attack error by ASU opened the door for a 7-1 TexAnn run down the stretch to force a game four.
In the fourth set, Tarleton finally jumped out in front of the Rambelles when a Green kill made it 11-10 and Tarleton would not relinquish the lead for the rest of the set. The TexAnns edged out the Rambelles 14-11 the rest of the way with Murrah landing the set-winner off a pass from Barker to force a game five.
In the fifth set, Tarleton opened up with a bang – scoring three straight points on back-to-back kills from Green and the third from
Meg Umbel to force an Angelo timeout.
Tarleton built the lead to 8-3 and coasted to the win, never leading by less than three the rest of the way. Green landed a kill shot from
Macie Walker to end the game in Tarleton's favor.
Green hit .415 to go along with her 20 kills and Murrah hit .300 in her 18-kill effort. Walker added 16 assists in her first action this season while
Kelsey Raglin (21),
Lacy Hodges (19) and
Katie Covell (15) also crack double figures in digs.
Barker's 21 assist of the day was the one that made her the school's all-time assist leader. It was the second point of the third set on a pass to fellow senior, Murrah. She now has 3,292 in her Tarleton career.
Tarleton will advance to the LSC Tournament for the fourth consecutive season and will play the first round Nov. 21 at The Box in Canyon.