ARTICLE BY: MICHAEL BAUER | ODESSA AMERICAN

The Odessa College volleyball team continued winning in convincing fashion, earning a sweep, 25-14, 25-15, 25-11, against Midland College Wednesday at the OC Sports Center in Western Junior College Athletic Conference action.

The Lady Wranglers (28-1 overall, 10-1 WJCAC) won to stay tied for first place with New Mexico Military Institute with one match remaining in the regular season.

"I think we played very well," Odessa College head coach Kristi Gray said. "I was very pleased with our match tonight. Our defense has been hot lately.

"We've talked a lot about our offense stepping up and executing lately and I think we did a good job tonight. We had a goal set for our hitting percentage and we beat that."

Carol Santana led the Lady Wranglers with 10 kills while Maria Rodrigues had seven. Lyric Love and Emery Judkins both had six kills each for Odessa College.

The Lady Wranglers began the day on a promising note, going on a 6-2 run in the first set.

Midland College (14-12, 6-5) responded with a quick 3-1 run and later pulled back within two points at 10-8. The Lady Wranglers responded back with unanswered runs of four and five points, respectively, to start pulling away at 22-11.

A pair of Judkins kills helped spur that run and two errors late by Midland College gave the Lady Wranglers the first set.

The Lady Wranglers began the second set much like the way they started the first and raced ahead to an early 6-1 advantage.

That's when the errors started to add up for the Lady Chaparrals as the lead grew from 9-3 to 13-4 and eventually, 19-9. Midland College stopped the damage for a moment but another error late would give Odessa College the second set to end it.

The Lady Wranglers again started fast with a 6-1 run in the third set to get things moving. The lead grew to 10-2 as Odessa College was making sure there would not be a fourth set played. Midland College rallied momentarily but couldn't make up enough ground to catch Odessa College and extend the match.

Luisa Silva Dos Santos added a pair of kills to build a 20-9 lead and Lyric Love added one of her three total blocks to add to the lead. The Lady Wranglers finished with eight total blocks on the night. Love closed the match out with a kill to finish off the sweep.

Odessa College finishes the regular season Saturday with a match against New Mexico Junior College at 5 p.m. back at the OC Sports Center.