North Texas Daily

Brady Keane | Staff Writer

@BradyKeane3

In what turned out to be an exciting back and forth match, the North Texas women’s volleyball team was unable to pull off the comeback and fell to Baylor University in four sets (19-25, 23-25, 25-22, 22-25).

Both teams entered the game coming off of tournament championships over the weekend, but Baylor (10-2) was able to hold off a ferocious comeback by the Mean Green (9-7) to extend their winning streak to six games.

“I think we need to go for the balls more,” senior captain and Conference USA Player of the Week Carnae Dillard said. “We had a lot of balls that fell between two people. As a team we played well, but we need to clean up the little things.”

The Mean Green fell behind early and faced a two set deficit before senior captain and began to storm back.

However, despite a packed house at the North Texas Volleyball Center, the Mean Green were unable to hold on to a lead in the fourth and final set of the match.

“Losing like that is always tough,” junior captain Amy Henard said. “It was nice to see that we could play with a team like that. I think that we could have taken the W, but there are some little things we need to work on.”

The Mean Green produced a fairly balanced offensive attack but were unable to overcome a .214 hitting percentage. Additionally, the Bears out-blocked the Mean Green 12 to five on the night.

Dillard led the way for the Mean Green, finishing with 19 kills and 10 digs on her way to another double-double. Sophomore Alexis Wright added 12 kills, while freshman Hannah Shaw (9 kills), and sophomores Holly Milam and Amanda Chamberlain (7 kills) contributed as well.

Additionally, Henard finished with 49 assists and nine digs.

“Even as bad as they out blocked us, we had more kills than they did,” head coach Andrew Palileo said. “I think our balance is starting to get better, but we need to improve on our errors in crucial moments.”