The injury-plagued UNM volleyball team managed a runner-up finish at the Lobo Challenge this weekend.
After sweeping Cal State Fullerton on Friday — 25-19, 25-17, 25-22 — the Lobos were handed their first loss of the season Friday at the hands of Baylor in a hard-fought 3-2 thriller. On Saturday, UNM recovered with a 3-1 victory against Pittsburgh.
The Lobos are now 7-1 for the season.
While UNM wasn’t particularly happy about settling for second place — and in its own tournament, no less — head coach Jeff Nelson said he was pleased with his team’s perseverance.
“Did we have a great weekend? No, not the greatest. But I would say we had a good weekend,” he said. “We would have liked to win all three matches, obviously. But considering we fought through being tired and all the injuries, I’m glad we were able to get two out of three.”
The Lobos entered the weekend with a few battle scars. Freshman defensive specialist Melissa Rohr missed out on Friday’s matches with a concussion she sustained diving for a ball during practice. Senior middle hitter Anna Lehne also missed two days of practice last week with flu-like symptoms.
Then, at 22-22 in the fourth set against Pittsburgh, senior outside hitter Rose Morris suffered a nasty finger injury while attempting a block. Morris’ right pinky finger was dislocated with a possible compound fracture as the bone broke through the skin. The match was delayed 20 minutes to clean up the blood.
“We were all kind of stunned,” junior outside hitter Taylor Hadfield said. “We knew we had to stay in the match and not let it get into our heads, so we just focused and decided that we’d finish the match for Rose.”
The Lobos buckled down and rallied behind three kills by Hadfield and a Pittsburgh attack error for the 26-24 win.
“I really liked the way we pulled together as a team,” Nelson said. “Finger injuries like that actually happen a lot. It’s just unfortunate to see because Rose was playing incredible volleyball, but we have a number of players ready to go off the bench.”
Hadfield finished the match with a .504 hitting percentage and a career-high 16 kills. Other career-high performances on the weekend included Morris’ 20 kills and sophomore libero Allison Buck’s 23 digs, both coming in Saturday’s match against Baylor.
“It’s great that we have people stepping up for us,” said junior setter Jade Michaelsen, who along with Morris was named to the all-tournament team. “When we have people who are hurt and when we have people who are sick, it’s good to know that we have a number of people who can come in and get the job done.”
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However, there’s little time for rest and recuperation, as UNM has a busy week ahead. The Lobos
conference opener is Wednesday, where it will host Texas Christian for Greeks at the Game Night. The team will then hit the road to visit Tucson, Ariz., on Friday for the Wildcat Invitational, hosted by No. 25 University of Arizona.
Nelson said the coming week will test the Lobos.
“We’ll need to bounce back and get on it quick if we want to be successful,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Baylor is a top-25 program, and we were right there with them. I feel like we deserve to get recognition at this point, and we’ll have some opportunities this week to prove ourselves.”
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Volleyball vs. TCU
Wednesday, 7 p.m.
Johnson Gym
