Texas A&M's three-game sweep of Sam Houston State ended appropriately with an ace.
Elise Hendrickson served her second ace of the game and the team's 10th of the match to clinch the Aggies' 25-15, 25-16, 25-11 victory over the Bearkats on Wednesday night at Reed Arena.
The Aggies (2-2) don't always serve for aces, but they had them coming in droves against SHSU (2-3).
"It depends on the situation," A&M coach Laurie Corbelli said. "I do feel we are a good serving team. We have Kelsey [Black's] jump topspin, Tori Mellinger's jump float, and I've got a couple of players backing up all the way to the basketball end line and just putting it in the air and letting it float, and the bottom drops out of it when it crosses the net, which is what Elise did there to end that last set."
Black led the way, matching an A&M record with six aces. She put the Aggies up 3-0 with two serves that the Bearkats let go only to watch them dip just inside the back line.
"I was telling [Coach L.J. Soriego] today, if I ever have to stand and serve again I'm going to be in a panic, so to jump and swing takes my focus off anything that could go wrong," Black said "All I'm thinking about is swinging hard, so I like it a lot."
"So do I," followed Corbelli.
Black had a match-high 12 kills and a personal best .524 hitting percentage. A&M middle blockers Stephanie Minnerly and Lindsey Miller took advantage of quick sets from Allie Sawatzky and Allie Freiwald to finish with eight and six kills, respectively.
"I love it," Minnerly said of the quick sets. "We are doing the faster sets, and Laurie told me I have a faster arm, so I'm working on getting my approach up and going strong in there so I can pull the block if I don't get set. We have Allie, who came in early in the spring, just starting to run fast-tempo sets and working on them every practice. So far I'm impressed with our freshmen setters."
Mellinger had 15 of the Aggies' 47 digs, which was a big improvement over the weekend in A&M's two losses at the A&M Invitational. A&M lost in five games to Pacific and got swept by LSU.
"Our attitudes were still positive," Minnerly said. "It's just the beginning of the season, and we are just going to go into the next tournament fighting hard."
Hendrickson did more than post the two aces, finishing second on the team in digs with eight and notching four kills -- all over the final two games.
"Elise is a very well-rounded player," Corbelli said. "It's nice to have that kind of cushion for us that we can mix and match wherever we need her to go. She is a very reliable player, and her training [makes] her fundamentals very, very solid."
Former A&M Consolidated standout Carli Kolbe led SHSU with five kills. She was one of only two Bearkats to finish with a hitting percentage above zero, ending at .050 over 20 attacks. Kim Black finished at .500 with four kills over just six attacks.
Corbelli was able to go to her bench in the second and third games, which should help A&M this weekend when the Aggies play three matches in just over 24 hours at the Missouri State JQH Invitational.
"I thought we got a lot of contribution from a lot of different attackers and everybody got on the floor, so we saw a lot of nice things tonight," Corbelli said. "We have our hands full with some teams that are really talented, are experienced, have size, a little bit of everything in all three teams [at the JQH Invitational]."