Less than a week after earning their first ranking in program history, the Amarillo College volleyball team proved worthy of their spot in the national poll.
The Badgers took eighth-ranked Blinn College to the brink and notched three sweeps at the Amarillo College Tournament, Sept. 12-13, to elevate the program’s best non-conference record in program history to 12-3.
While the Badgers ended their home tourney with a four-set defeat (25-16, 25-21, 13-25, 26-24) to the No. 8 Bucs (20-1), the final two frames of the match showed that when the team is firing on all cylinders, AC has the ability to go toe-to-toe with top-10 caliber programs.
“It shows we’re right there. We’ve been gaining confidence as the season progresses and hopefully that continues,” AC head coach Scott Sandel said. “
Delany Galligan, AC’s two-time Wester Junior College Athletic Conference Player of the Week, had her most productive performance of the season against the Badgers’ highest ranked opponent to date. The Argyle High School product tallied a season-best 17 kills on 31 swings with only two errors (.452 hitting percentage) against Blinn.
“She’s very competitive and she’s been doing that all year,” Sandel noted. “They had a hard time handling our slide five combo. We were brining in the right side in for the five and that put her out there in a one-on-one situations.”
Sophomore Jayli Franklin added her second-highest kill total (16) in the tourney finale.
On Friday, AC swept Otero College (25-12, 27-25, 28-26) and Butler Community College (25-19, 30-28, 25-17).
Franklin put forth one of the top performances of her career against a formidable Butler squad. The Amarillo native and West Plains High School alum put down a team-best 15 kills via a .462 hitting percentage.
“She had a good week of practice and I thought that carried over,” Sandel said.
Freshman Sam Cardona played an equally important role in the sweep of the Grizzles. Cardona tied the school-record for blocks in a single match (6) to end day one of AC’s home tourney with 11 stuffs.
AC fended off four set points in the second frame versus Butler to claim the set 30-28. Galligan put down a kill on a London Baker assist to tie the second set at 24-24.
Emery Bryan’s tip shot tied the set at 25-25 and Galligan followed with her final kill of the set to tie the frame at 26-26.
AC took advantage of three hitting errors and a serving error by Butler to win the set.
On Saturday morning, the Badgers rolled to a sweep of Trinidad State College (25-16, 25-18, 25-19) with a versatile offensive attack. Five players tallied at least five kills against the Trojans: Galligan (11), Franklin (8), Bryan (7) Yuna NG (5), Chayse Wilson (5).
Bryan led AC in hitting percentage (.425) over the weekend with 21 kills on 40 attack attempts. Franklin paced the team in digs (16) while Baker (80 assists) and Madeline Lentz (64 assists) quarterbacked the offense throughout the four-game tourney.
Galligan had a team-high 51 kills via a .388 hitting percentage.
The performance by the Badgers at their home tourney improved their ranking to 19th in the national poll, which was released on Monday afternoon.
The Badgers begin conference play on Wednesday, Sept. 17 at home against Clarendon College. The match is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.