Comeback Complete: Bulldogs Top #RV Colorado College in Five in SCAC Opener

GEORGETOWN, Texas -- The Texas Lutheran volleyball team completed the comeback victory over the Colorado College Tigers, a team picked ahead of the Bulldogs in the SCAC Preseason Poll and receiving votes in the AVCA Top 25 Coaches Poll, in five sets on Saturday afternoon at the Robertson Center on the campus of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

The Bulldogs improve to 8-3 on the season and 1-0 in conference play, while Colorado College drops to 4-5 on the year and 1-1 in the SCAC.

Colorado College took the first set 25-17, but Texas Lutheran would respond with a 25-12 win in the second to knot the match at 1-1. The third set took extra points, with the Tigers claiming it 27-25, but TLU won the fourth frame 26-24 to force a winner-take-all fifth set. The Bulldogs won the match with a gutsy 15-13 victory in the final frame. After being 0-24 against the Tigers from 2012-21, the Bulldogs have won three of the last four matches against the highly-touted Tigers.

Shavonne Respondek (San Antonio/Madison), last week's SCAC Offensive Player of the Week, finished with a career-high 14 kills, hitting .229 in the five-set match. She also recorded her second triple double of the season, and second in her last four matches, adding a team-high 19 assists and 14 digs.

Keriann Kallus (New Braunfels/New Braunfels) had nine kills, while hitting .429, in the match while adding four blocks, nine digs and an ace. Brylie Nedd (Sealy/Sealy), Tanyse Moehrig (Spring Branch/Smithson Valley), and Emily Mixon (Woodville/Woodville) all had seven kills, while Moehrig had seven digs and three blocks. Victoria Powell (Richmond/Fulshear) added six kills and four blocks.

Julia Chew (Cypress/Cy-Fair) had 15 assists for her tenth double-digit assist match in 11 matches.

Faith Coldewey (Floresville/Floresville) led the Bulldogs with 21 digs and added five assists. Ridley Kelly (Missouri City/Elkins) had 11 digs and a kill, while freshman Richelle Guerra (Brownsville/Rivera Early College) stepped up for nine digs, an ace, an assist and a block.

The match was close throughout the beginning of the match before the Tigers would pull away to take the first set, 25-17. The Bulldogs responded in dominant fashion winning the second set, 25-12, behind three kills each from Ryann Ely (Montgomery/Concordia Lutheran), Moehrig and Respondek.

The Bulldogs would fall 27-25 in the third set but would keep the match alive with a 26-24 fourth set win behind a total team effort with seven different Bulldogs recording a kill - led by three from Kallus.

After trailing early in the fifth, Texas Lutheran would rally to win 15-13 - closing the match on a 3-0 run with a service ace from Kallus serving as the match point. Respondek and Mixon would finish the fifth with three kills each.

The Bulldogs continue their SCAC opening weekend tonight in a 6 PM matchup with Schreiner. The game will not be live streamed but the live stats link will be available on tlubulldogs.com.

For more information on Texas Lutheran volleyball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (TLU Volleyball), X (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 X (Twitter), @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).