Texas A&M Women’s Club Volleyball A Team took second and B Team took third at the Oktoberfest Tournament hosted by Texas State University.
Both the A and B teams played three university club teams in pool play and advanced to the gold bracket on Saturday, Oct. 16 at the teams’ second tournament of the season. The A Team competed for the championship against the University of Texas’ Orange Team, but finished second. A&M’s B Team finished third, also falling to the UT Orange Team.
The A Team beat University North Texas, Texas Tech University and University of Texas-San Antonio to advance to Gold bracket play. B Team beat Texas State, Sam Houston State University and UTSA for a final 4 of 6 match wins, to also advance to the Gold bracket.
A Team player Alexis Ford said the last moments of the close games were intense.
“We came together as a team; we focus on new plays rather than the past,” Ford said.
The B Team started the day against SHSU, winning the first match 23-14, but losing 22-25 in the second game. The A&M B Team won the tiebreaker 15-13.
“We are trained to hit hard shots,” B Team player Juliana Torres said. “They started to hit smart. We had to be more aggressive.”
Both A and B teams won the first Gold round bracket to advance to the final four teams.
“I know the score only goes to 15,” A Team player Madison Korinek said, noting the team kept calm during a tense last play against UT’s White Team. “We have to push from the very beginning, and we can’t let up.”
B Team lost a tiebreaker to UT’s Orange team in the final four of the gold bracket for a third place finish. A Team beat Texas Tech to advance to the championship match but fell to the UT Orange Team in a tie-breaker, 6-15, for second place.
“We are so exhausted,” A Team Natalie Buban said, going into the final match after almost 12 hours of volleyball.
The second-place finish was disappointing, Buban said.
“Obviously this was not the outcome we were hoping for, but we are super proud of today,” club President Allie Goff said.
The No. 2 and 3 finishes at the Oktoberfest Tournament sets the A&M Women’s Club Volleyball teams up for the Oct. 30 home tournament.