ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two matches into their four-game homestand and the Lobos have broken out the brooms twice.
Julia Warren tallied 11 kills and Skye Gullatt added nine on a flawless .643 hitting percentage as the University of New Mexico volleyball team dusted off San José State in straight sets Thursday night in Johnson Center.
The Lobos (14-10, 7-4 Mountain West) hit over .300 against the Spartans (12-12, 4-7) en route to a second-straight sweep of the week. New Mexico also swept Air Force Tuesday, and currently sits tied for third in the conference with seven games remaining.
“We hit .300-plus, so our feeling has been that if we have three or four kids hitting better ball, we can win most of our matches, and tonight we did,” UNM head coach Jeff Nelson said.
“I like what we are doing and I think the last three weeks have been really good, so I’m excited for next week for the test.”
Next week, the Lobos continue their homestand with matches against Wyoming (which is tied with UNM for third in the MW) and MW leader Colorado State.
But, Thursday’s match was all about New Mexico’s offense, as the Lobos hit .307 (41 kills, 10 errors, 101 attempts) against an outmatched Spartan contingent.
Along with Warren’s 11 kills — her best output since posting 11 on Sept. 29 at New Mexico State — and Gullatt’s nine, the Lobos received seven kills apiece from Devanne Sours and Cassie House.
“Julia had good numbers, especially hitting that quick ball on the outside,” Nelson said. “She ripped a couple of those and I liked what we did.”
As a team, the Lobos only committed 10 attack errors against their 41 kills, resulting in their fifth game hitting above .300 in a match. UNM hit .305 in the first meeting vs. SJSU on Oct. 3 in San Jose.
Hannah Johnson also contributed, dishing out 36 assists as she inches ever closer to the program record in assists. The redshirt senior is just 282 assists from the record.
Defensively, Mercedes Pacheco led the Lobos with nine digs, while Warren chipped in seven and Johnson six.
New Mexico’s block only registered four total stuffs, but heavily influenced San José State as the Spartans hit just .078 (32 attacks, 24 errors, 103 attempts).
“We actually set up the block pretty well,” Nelson said. “We forced a lot of hitting errors and that’s a good block, too.”
San José State opened the match taking an 8-5 lead on the Lobos in set one, extending that advantage to 12-10. But New Mexico turned the tide behind kills from Sours and Warren as it rolled out a 4-0 run.
The Spartans tied the set at 15, but UNM responded with a decisive 10-2 run to win the set 25-17.
Sours, Warren and Gullatt each had three kills in the opening frame as the Lobos hit .256. New Mexico held SJSU to a .152 success rate, and did so without registering a block.
The Lobos came out with more fire in set two, sprinting to a 5-2 lead as the Spartans committed three errors. UNM continued to built its margin, holding leads at 11-5 and 16-7. San José State strung together three straight points just once, and hold posted two other instances of consecutive points.
New Mexico, who led wire-to-wire in a 25-17 set win, countered every Spartan advance in the set, and hit a sparkling .320 to San José State’s negative .094 rate. The Spartans gave up 17 total errors in the set.
“I really liked our energy in game one and two,” Nelson said. “I thought we passed the ball well and moved it really fast.”
San José State took the lead early in the set three, going up 4-2 early. But the Lobos tied the stanza up at 7, and didn’t look back, going up 13-10 to force a Spartan timeout. Both teams began trading points to 18-15, until New Mexico broke the pattern with three straight to claim a 20-15 lead.
The Spartans climbed to within three late, but the Lobos relied on an Ashley Kelsey ace and two final SJSU errors for a 25-22 set win.
New Mexico is back in action next Thursday as it hosts Wyoming at 7 p.m. in Johnson Center. Wyoming won the first meeting this season 3-0 in Laramie on October 10.