The last time the Texas A&M volleyball team lost a match to Texas State, George H.W. Bush was president, Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was the top song on the radio and A&M soccer was two years away from being established.
That was 1991, when the Bobcats took down the Aggies in a five-set thriller in San Marcos. A&M has come out on top in the teams’ 17 meetings since then, a streak the Aggies hope to continue when the Bobcats visit Reed Arena for a matchup Friday at 6:30 p.m.
The Aggies look to keep the good times rolling and build on a 3-0 start to the young campaign. A&M took down South Alabama and McNeese State in Mobile, Alabama last weekend before a sweep of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the team’s home opener on Sept. 2. Reed Arena hosted a crowd just shy of 2,500, a number coach Jamie Morrison hopes to surpass in Friday’s Fish Camp Night.
“I had a moment before the match when I pulled my staff over,” Morrison said. “When you take something over, you have a vision for what it’s going to be, I think, from a volleyball standpoint. When I took this program, a lot of it was geared on what I saw with the 12th Man and being able to build an audience in a place where people care about volleyball and be able to build the sport.”
Texas State isn’t a stranger to the big stage, though. Last season, the Bobcats amassed a 20-10 record with a 12-4 mark in Sun Belt Conference play. They swept No. 13 Houston and took on the likes of Tennessee, California and Kansas. Texas State reached the NCAA Tournament, where it fell to SMU.
The Bobcats opened the season with victories over Houston Christian and Texas Southern before dropping a match on the road against Rice, 3-0. Redshirt sophomore outside hitter Samantha Wunsch and freshman OH MJ McCurdy lead the way on offense with over 30 kills each while fifth-year setter Ryann Torres has tallied 94 assists. Defensively, senior libero Alyssa Ortega has 37 digs.
A&M’s game has been built around sharing the ball, with 14.9 assists per set to rank second in the nation. LSU transfer setter Maddie Waak headlines the effort with 12.2 assists per set, good for fifth in the country. The Katy product earned SEC Setter of the Week honors on Sept. 2 for her efforts during the Aggies’ first weekend of play.
That offense has been guided by an aggressive attack that has seen A&M dominate around the net with 15.9 kills per set, ranking third in the nation. Junior opposite hitter Logan Lednicky, a preseason All-SEC team selection, captains the effort with 4.6 kills per set. Against the Islanders, Lednicky and sophomore middle blocker Morgan Perkins picked up 12 kills each.
“I think it’s crucial to winning matches,” Lednicky said. “You can’t just have one hitter going, going, going because that’s just not going to work out. People will camp out on you and stuff. I think it’s super awesome having as many hitters and the depth that we do. … Just having that spread out is so nice for us, knowing we don’t have that pressure on us to execute every time [and] knowing our teammates have our backs, in that sense.”
The group effort has allowed the Aggies to be one of the most efficient teams in the nation with a hitting percentage of 32.4%. Junior MB Ifenna Cos-Okpalla and Perkins have engineered the attack, hitting at rates of 51.2% and 45.2%, respectively.
A&M’s first three matches of the season haven’t been all-Aggies, though. The team’s opponents have scored 21 points or more in each opening set, with A&M-Corpus Christi putting up 24 points. A&M responded by taking the second set, 25-11.
“I’m happy that they’re able to work through stuff and we’re able to get into those situations, have a conversation within the set and figure it out,” Morrison said. “The beautiful thing about our sport is it starts back over at zero, but the great teams are the ones that can figure it out mid-set. I don’t want to be in the position I told them by the time we get five or six matches in, we need to be ready to go five minutes before the set begins.”
As A&M anticipates a sizable crowd for Friday’s match, Morrison is excited to see the trajectory of the program and the fan support that comes with it.
“I was just really fired up that what I had in [my mind] and the idea for this place is starting to come to fruition,” Morrison said. “I’m proud of that the most.”
