Game Results (Lindenwood) | Game Results ( Drury)
LAWTON, Okla. -- Playing back-to back five game matches in consecutive days is something that happens a few times a season. For Cameron playing two five game matches in one day is extremely rare to have happen at any time during a career or for a program.
The team played with plenty of determination and grit but fell in two close matches to Lindenwood 2-3 (25-19, 17-25, 15-25, 25-23, 10-15) Friday afternoon Drury 2-3 (24-26, 26-24, 20-25, 25-21, 6-15) in the evening game at the O'Reilly Family Event Center in Springfield, Mo.
Rebecca Green had a career night with 18 kills against Lindenwood, her previous best was seven accomplished twice last season, while Aggie freshman Annelise Carpenter provided a mix of offense and defense with 12 kills and six blocks. Nisa Garcia also came up big for the Aggies with a career best 22 digs in her first match for the Black and Gold.
Cameron got their first double-double performance during the Lindenwood match from freshman Shannon Dulaney who had 10 kills and 14 digs.
Top performers in game two against Drury was another around effort by Dulaney (12 kills) and Green (11 kills). Kathryn Evans came up big with 15 kills and Carpenter provided 7 blocks.
"It been while since I've seen a team that played in two matches that go five games twice in a day," said head coach Doug Tabbert. "We had a few matches back-to-back last year that went to five games but it was on the next day. Matches like these take a toll on a player, right now we don't have a lot of subs to into games with so we are asking some of the players to go deep into matches."
"The team showed a great kind of effort by a young group after falling behind in both matches, they kept battling, and cleaned up errors throughout the night to play at a high level."
The Aggies came out strong against Lindenwood winning the first set 25-19. However, slow starts in the following two sets, including a 0-7 start in set three put Cameron back 1-2.  In the fourth set Cameron rallied from behind and took game down to the wire winning 26-24.
During the fifth and final set both teams were knotted up at 6-6 but Lindenwood took a small lead afterward and didn't look back handing Cameron a loss in their season opener.
Later in the evening, Cameron faced tournament host Drury and once again the team opened up hot with an early 4-0 lead but the scoring leveled off. After falling behind 22-24 late in game one Cameron tied the score after a kill by Kathryn Evans and an attach error by Drury but they would later fall 24-26.
Cameron pushed Drury to the limits in game two falling behind 21-23 and was faced with the possibility of a 0-2 hole.  A pair of game changing kills from Evans and Green followed and gave the Aggies the momentum  to rally back winning game two 26-24.
The Aggies continued to battle throughout the match but a 0-4 rally to end the third set put Cameron back 1-2. While in game four, Cameron led mid-way after a 5-0 run giving them a 16-11 lead would later win game four 25-21 and for the second time in a day pushed their match to decisive game five.
Similar to their earlier game with Lindenwood the Aggies fell behind mid-way through game five and would ultimately fall 6-15.
The tournament resumes Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. with Cameron squaring-off against Kentucky Wesleyan and will then face Newman University at 3:45 p.m.
For all the latest information on Cameron Athletics, please log on to www.cameronaggies.com or, for up-to-the-minute updates, follow Cameron Athletics on Twitter at @cameronaggies (https://twitter.com/cameronaggies).
