New Mexico Lobos Women Volleyball – Saturday – Johnson Center
New Mexico 3, San Diego State 1 (25-18, 25-17, 23-25, 25-21)
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
For Chantale Riddle, becoming the career points leader for the New Mexico volleyball program was not her No. 1 concern Saturday when San Diego State invaded Johnson Center in Mountain West action.
Chantale was thinking of team goals. She was thinking about winning.
“It feels good to win,” said the Lobo senior. “I wanted to win more than I wanted to become the point leader. I wanted to beat San Diego State. I wanted to come out focused and play hard and be aggressive.”
Riddle and a lot of other Lobos did exactly that in the 3-1 (25-18, 25-17, 23-25, 25-21) league win over the Aztecs. Riddle recorded her 13th double-double (kills/digs) of the season and Hannah Johnson had her 15th double-double (assists/digs).
Riddle became the all-time Lobo points leader with 1,838 points passing Tania Gooley’s previous mark of 1,818 points.
“It’s feels amazing,” Riddle said of getting the record. “It doesn’t feel like reality. It doesn’t feel like it’s real. It doesn’t feel like that actually happened.”
Riddle finished with 18 kills and 15 digs. Johnson had 50 assists and 16 digs. UNM also got 14 kills from Cassie House and 10 from Devanne Sours. Julia Warren had 23 digs.
The Lobos were efficient at the net hitting .261, .167, .333 and .217. Ironically, the Lobos best hitting game in the third set was their only loss of the afternoon.
For a moment, for a game, maybe Lobo Coach Jeff Nelson was thinking there might be some bad déjà vu in Johnson Center haunting his Lobos.
The Lobos won the first two sets over San Diego State to roll into the break with a 2-0 lead, but came out to lose the first game after intermission. The Lobos did the same thing a couple of days ago vs. UNLV, but proceeded to drop the next two games – and the match.
Saturday the Lobos rallied from that third set loss to beat the Aztecs 25-21 in the fourth game to claim the win and raise the Lobos’ record to 17-10 and 9-5 in MW play. SDSU drops to 11-13 and 6-7 in league matches.
“I thought in games one and two we really played well and really controlled the pace,” said Nelson. “We had a few breakdowns in three and four, but the difference in four was we didn’t let it get away from us and continued to stay aggressive.
“I thought Chantale had another good day. The whole thing (breaking the record in front of Gooley) was great. It was pretty awesome.
“Overall it was a really great match for us.”
The Lobos hit .245 overall in the four games. The Aztecs hit at a .111 pace, but got a big game from Halle Aiken with 20 kills and 12 digs. Chalymin Steel had 20 digs for SDSU. The attendance was listed a 1,114.