UNM Concludes Season with Saturday Split
TUCSON, Ariz.— In its final two matches of the beach volleyball season, The University of New Mexico produced another split on Saturday to conclude the Wildcat Spring Challenge, dropping a first match to No. 13 Arizona and closing out the weekend with a 3-2 victory over Ottawa University Arizona.
Much like the first meeting between the Lobos and Wildcats on March 16 at Bear Down Beach, Lauren Twitty and Dali Rosado tallied the lone Lobo point, edging out their opponents in two, closely contested two-point decisions of 21-19, 23-21 on court one for the straight-set win.
Four of the five courts played a close first set against the Wildcats with only court one able to pull off the set win.
Joey Benson and Carly Beddingfield were the first court to finish, with the Lobos dropping the team point in identical 21-10 sets. Arizona put UNM in a further deficit on court four with Emily Nenninger and Abbey Willison losing a close first set, 25-23, before falling 21-6 in the second for the straight-set defeat.
The Wildcats captured the match with a win on court five with Jaclyn Inclan and Claire Nenninger losing another close first set, 21-19 and a 21-14 second set. Yasmin Tan and Morgan Schreckler were the next to finish on court two, narrowly losing in both sets in a 24-22, 21-18 score.
Twitty and Rosado was the last pair to finish their dual, putting UNM on the board.
In an almost fitting manner, the second meeting between UNM and Ottawa University Arizona resulted in another 3-2 final, although this time it was the Lobos who claimed the victory. All five courts went in straight sets.
UNM won its first three courts, led by a commanding win on the No. 1 court by Rosado and Twitty to the score of 21-13, 21-9.
Benson and Beddingfield kept the Lobos in front on court three with identical set scores of 21-11 to put UNM in control of the match, 2-0.
After an error in the scoring incorrectly gave UNM the third set 15-12 on court five and at the time what was thought to be ultimately the team point that pushed UNM in front 3-2 in the team score in Friday’s match, Inclan and C. Nenninger left no doubt as they took care of their Spirit opponents in straight sets, 21-17, 21-13 to clinch the Lobo team victory.
Tan and Schreckler fell 21-11, 21-17 for OUAZ’s first team point on the No. 2 court and the Spirit got a second point on court four with Willison and E. Nenninger falling 21-19, 21-16.
The Lobos finish the season 10-14 overall, with Twitty and Rosado tallying the best record on the season at 19-5 as the No. 1 team, followed by Willison and E. Nenninger who went 12-12 playing as the No. 4 pairing.
In their last 10 matches, Twitty and Rosado went 9-1, and had a winning percentage of .792 on the year. Their 19 wins rank third in program history in single-season pair wins and the .792 win percentage is second all-time, surpassing Twitty’s win percentage in 2017 of .773 that she achieved with Julia Warren.
With 19 wins in 2019, Twitty now ranks second in individual career wins with 51. She finishes her beach career with a record of 51-16 (.761), which also ranks second all-time in career winning percentage. In addition, her 67 career matches played at UNM ties for second. The 19 wins this season is the most wins that the Virginia native has recorded in a single season, one more than she had in 2017 and five more than in 2018.
Beddingfield finished her career with 25 total wins, breaking in to the top-10 in career wins at ninth.