Lobos Downed in Straight Sets in Home Tournament Finale

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Volleyball fell to UC Irvine in straight sets (16-25, 14-25, 18-25) in its third and final match of the Lobo Invitational Saturday afternoon at the Johnson Center.

Lauryn Payne led the Lobos’ attack with 11 kills – her second double-digit performance of the weekend – while Jada Bouyer, Seenane Brewer and Madeleine Miller added three each and Kialah Jefferson and Naomi Chankoumi both finished with two each to round out a 26-kill performance. Miller produced double-digit assists for the third straight match after setting new career-highs in the prior two, leading the way with 16 while adding five digs. Falanika Danielson in her third appearance at Libero and finished with a team-high eight digs, leading 11 Lobos that finished with multiple.

But the Anteaters’ attack mounted over the final two sets after only finishing the first set with nine kills — they rolled to 30 more on .256 hitting the rest of the way, holding UNM to .000 hitting and 16 kills in the same span to stifle their hopes of pulling off another rally.

After the first week of the 2024 season, the Lobos take a 2-1 record on the road with them to Houston, Texas for more tournament action, where they’ll face Kansas City, Howard and host Houston Christian. As a team, UNM is averaging 13.0 kills and 12.08 assists per set, with Kialah Jefferson (37 kills, 3.36 K/s) and Lauryn Payne (30 kills, 3.0 K/s) leading the team in kills and Madeleine Miller leading in assists (90 total, 7.50 A/s) and digs (34, 2.83 D/s).

LOBO INVITATIONAL ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
New Mexico and UC Irvine, both at 2-1 on the weekend are the 2024 Lobo Invitational Co-Champions, with Kialah Jefferson, Elizabeth Woods and Falanika Danielson all earning All-Tournament Team honors for their performances. Below is the Lobo Invitational All-Tournament Team:

• Kialah Jefferson, New Mexico
• Liz Woods, New Mexico
• Falanika Danielson, New Mexico
• Katie Smith, UC Irvine
• Hunter Riedl, UC Irvine
• Nicole Feliciano, UC Irvine
• Sami Jacobs, Tulane
• Sabrina Skyers, Tulane
• Cala Cooper, North Dakota
• Katy Riviere, North Dakota

SET ONE – UC IRVINE 25, NEW MEXICO 16

The Lobos started things off with a 4-0 run after falling behind 0-2 in the opening set, but again had to work from behind when the Anteaters rattled off nine in a row in response. Down 9-17 and hitting -.136 when Coach Newman-Gonchar called the first timeout, the Lobos finished the set with 10 kills to UCI’s nine and scored seven of the final 12 points but were sunk by 12 attacking errors and a pair of costly service errors that kept them safely out of range down the stretch.

After finishing with four kills in total in Friday’s five-set win over North Dakota, Lauryn Payne matched that with four in the first alone on Saturday to lead the Lobo attack – Jefferson and Miller added two more each.

SET TWO – UC IRVINE 25, NEW MEXICO 14

UCI looked to keep its rhythm going after two kills followed by back-to-back UNM attack errors made it 4-1 to start the second – the Lobos were held to match-lows of seven kills with a 41% sideout percentage, with five of those kills being in the final 10 points of the set and four of them being from Payne as she reached eight on the match.

SET THREE – UC IRVINE 25, NEW MEXICO 18

The Lobos put together a 4-0 run – capped off by a solo block from Jada Bouyer and a UCI attack error back-to-back – that tied things up at 13-all, but the ‘Eaters scored eight of the next 10 points to go back up 21-15, forcing UNM into two timeouts in the process. Payne came up with a block assist to get the Lobos to 16 and notched her 11th kill of the match to extend set point at 24-18, but UCI’s Nicole Feliciano put down the ‘Eaters’ 16th kill of the set to seal the sweep.