Volleyball beats Wisconsin-Stout, 3-1, in Season Opener

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The Texas Lutheran volleyball team rallied after dropping the first set to beat Wisconsin-Stout, 26-28, 25-23, 25-13, 25-20, in Thursday's season opener at Calgaard Gymnasium on the campus of Trinity University.

With Thursday's match, the Bulldogs began their stretch of five matches in three days. The Bulldogs will travel to Houston tomorrow to play four matches on the campus of St. Thomas University in an early season tournament. Their first match Friday will be against Neumann University at 1 PM followed by a 5 PM match against Willamette University. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.

Maddy Schultz (Richmond/Needville) led Texas Lutheran with 19 kills and added four digs and three blocks. Tanyse Moehrig (Spring Branch/Smithson Valley) finished with 11 kills and hit .346 in the match.

Brylie Nedd (Sealy/Sealy) had a great all-around match finishing with seven kills, seven digs, an assist and a block.

Shavonne Respondek (San Antonio/Madison), last season's SCAC Newcomer of the Year, dished out 26 assists and added 11 digs, two kills, and two service aces. Julia Chew (Cypress/Cy-Fair) added 19 assists.

Lexi Morris (Victoria/Victoria West), last season's NCAA Division-III leader in digs and the SCAC Backrow Player of the Year, led the Bulldogs with 28 digs.

Despite Texas Lutheran leading for the majority of the set, Wisconsin-Stout fought back to steal the opening set 28-26. The Bulldogs committed six attack errors and hit .243 in the first set.

Texas Lutheran bounced back in a big way in the second set, hitting .306 in the second set led by six kills from Schultz in the set.

The Bulldogs grabbed the lead by cruising to a 25-13 third set win behind four kills from Schultz and three kills from Peyton Sulak (Needville/Needville).

Texas Lutheran put the match away with their best set of the night - hitting a match-high .324 and holding Wisconsin-Stout to a .088 hitting percentage.

For more information on Texas Lutheran volleyball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (TLU Volleyball), Twitter (@TLU_VB), and Instagram (@tlu_vb) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).