The University of New Mexico volleyball team continued its winning ways with a 3-0 victory over the Air Force Academy on Saturday.
"We were really streaky tonight," Head coach Kelly Sliva said. "But we held it together and I think it's huge for us to sweep these guys at home in three."
The Lobos cruised to their fifth straight win and improved to 1-0 in the Mountain West Conference.
UNM dominated the first game taking a 23-17 lead when freshman middle blocker Chelsea Sondrup scorched a smash past two Falcon defenders. Sophomore blocker Staci Masten gave the Lobos a 25-19 lead with a block and junior outside hitter Anna Reines put the game away with a slam to make the score 28-22. The final score of the first game was UNM 30, Air Force 23.
The second game proved to be the most important and exciting. The Lobos came out flat and quickly found themselves in a hole.
UNM stayed close early in the game and cut the Falcons' lead to 4-3 on a Masten kill. Air Force continued its strong play in the game and took leads of 7-4 and 12-8. A Reines smash made the score 13-9 in favor of the Falcons.
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The Lobos continued to look out of synch as Air Force built a commanding 20-14.
It was at that moment that things started to click for UNM, as the Falcons were called for net interference and an illegal double hit.
The turning point came when hard hitting sophomore Cayse Kaveny went up for a slam. An AFA player was able to save the ball and sent it right back to Kaveny. This time she would not be denied and crushed the ball to the floor.
"I had a lot of adrenaline because I had just hit and it came back over," Kaveny said. "I went up and did what I had to do."
The Lobos took the momentum and ran with it. Senior outside hitter Vanessa Shields gave UNM the lead for the first time in the game 21-20 with an ace that caught the back line.
The Falcons continued to battle though and the game was tied 29-29. The Lobos got to game point with Shields serving and the Falcons committed an untimely double hit penalty on the serve to give UNM the point and the game 31-29.
In the third and deciding game the Lobos came out slow again but finally managed to take the lead for the first time 11-10 when an Air Force shot went long.
The Falcons kept it interesting, but UNM was able to take the lead for good when Sondrup got up and blocked an AFA shot to give the Lobos a 23-22 lead. UNM would not look back as it took the game 30-25.
"We're playing as a team and mainly we've worked on eliminating errors on our side of the net," Burns said. "Everything is just coming together."
The Lobos improved their record to 6-8 (1-0 MWC) after a dismal 1-8 start to the season.
The Falcons dropped to 6-9 overall and 0-1 in the MWC.
Reines led UNM with 12 kills. Sophomore setter Monica Meihack had an impressive match with 35 assists. Senior Blaire Burns led the team with 13 digs. Sondrup had a team-high four blocks.
The Lobos look to continue their winning ways when they travel to Utah and play at BYU on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.
