LeTourneau University – Sports

Men’s Tennis

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Having already affected the qualifying draws on Thursday evening, the weather once again would be a factor at the ITA men’s tennis regional in San Antonio, Texas forcing the LeTourneau University tennis team to play under a revised schedule.

Host Trinity University, along with the coaching staffs of every school, decided to go to a third site to help offset the delays in hopes of getting back on schedule.

In the action that did take place on Friday, Robby Bundy, Christian Farris, Jimmie Henson, and Daniel Lopez would get in their opening matches of the “A” draw. Bundy would fall by a score of 6-1, 6-0 to top overall seed Arthur Fagundes of Texas-Tyler while Farris earned a 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 victory over Josh Newman of Schreiner University. In a second-round match against Alex Hunt of Hardin-Simmons, Farris would drop a 6-2, 6-3 match.

Henson and Lopez each lost their opening round match of the “A” draw to go to the “A” consolation bracket with Lopez dropping a 6-3, 6-3 decision to Oscar Ferrero of Texas-Tyler. Henson’s match was unable to be completed on Friday while Bundy bounced back from his first-round loss to earn a 4-6, 6-4 6-6 win after B.J. Farmakis of Hardin-Simmons ended up retiring the match.

The “B” draw will get underway on Saturday afternoon after the revised schedule did not allow for play to start Friday, as will the “C” draw which also features LETU athletes.

In the doubles “A” draw which saw limited results, Zac Crowley-Kurth and Bundy dropped an 8-0 decision to Tyer and Lambeth of Trinity University while Lopez and Rodrigo Vazquez Chairez lost their match to Hardy and Kortikere of Austin College 8-3. Ferris and Henson also managed to get their “A” doubles match in, falling 8-5 to Cook and Hollingsworth of Hardin-Simmons while Cameron Wall and Dale Wallace II dropped an 8-2 decision to Padilla and Fortune of Austin College in the “B” draw doubles.

Plenty of action will be had on Saturday at the ITA Regionals, as the weather is expected to finally cooperate and allow the tournament to go on as scheduled. Be sure to check back to www.letuathletics.com tomorrow evening for a full recap of your favorite YellowJacket tennis players and their results.

Cross Country

LONGVIEW, Texas – Running their first race in two weeks, the LeTourneau University cross country teams had multiple runners set season lows in the Nicole Leman Invitational held at the LETU cross country course in Longview, Texas on Friday, September 29.

Seeing her first action of the year, sophomore Alexis Segura would lead the YellowJacket women on the 5K course with a time of 20:26. Kennedy Keer clocked a time of 22:44 in her first race of the year while Brittany Bergman improved upon her time from earlier this year by running a 23:17. Bridey Davis ran a 25:15, 10 seconds quicker than her time at the R.G. LeTourneau Invitational while Allison Fuller clocked a 26:41.

On the men’s side, Michael Field improved upon his time from earlier this to lead the men with a 17:04 while Nathan Glastetter came in at 18 minutes even. Austin Coblentz was right behind Glastetter with an 18:05 while Lorien Nightingale ran an 18:21, over a minute quicker than his previous time on the LETU cross country course. Ben Duitsman (20:33) and Ryan Mailhot (22:50) also ran in the meet for the YellowJackets.

The Mississippi College Watson Ford Cross Country Invitational will be next in store for LETU on Saturday, October 7th. The men will kick off the meet with an 8K run followed by a women’s 6K.

Volleyball

LONGVIEW, Texas – A back and forth match saw the LeTourneau University volleyball team battled back from two sets to one deficit to force a deciding fifth game before ultimately falling by a final of 3-2 to Belhaven University at Solheim Arena on Friday, September 29th.

The YellowJackets slipped to 4-12 overall and 0-6 in the American Southwest Conference while the visiting Blazers improved to 10-6 overall and 5-2 in the ASC.

Set one saw neither team jump out to a lead of more than four points in the game as nobody could gain momentum and go on a rally. With the score 21-19 in favor of Belhaven, LETU would close out the set on a 6-2 run with three consecutive BU attack errors leading to a first set victory for the YellowJackets.

A problematic second set would see LeTourneau hit just .024 in the set while Belhaven would use an early run to build their lead and never look back en route to a 25-16 game win. The Blazers biggest lead would come at 21-8 before the YellowJackets managed to battle back to win some points and go into the third set knotted at one.

The third set would see LETU have to play from behind for a majority of the game with Belhaven opening up leads of 8-1 and 18-11 forcing head coach Ashley Tiernan to use both of her timeouts. Trailing 19-11, the YellowJackets would reel off five straight points and pull the match to 21-20 but would concede the next three points as Belhaven would squeak out a 25-22 solid win.

Using the momentum and feeding off the crowd from a near-comeback in set three, LeTourneau would find a way to earn their second 25-23 set win of the night in the fourth game and force a match-deciding in the fifth set.

Unforced errors managed to put LETU in an early fifth game hole they could never recover from as they would see a potential victory slip away and the Blazers managed to pull away for a 15-8 set win to earn the match 3-2.

Freshman Hailey Matthews just missed out on a double-double, finishing with 27 digs and nine kills while senior Korissa White had 23 assists. Fellow senior Elyse Wright led all players with 16 kills in the match while adding four assisted blocks.

The YellowJackets will close out a six-game homestand tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. when they play host to Louisiana College. The Wildcats dropped a three-set match to East Texas Baptist Friday night and are 0-12 on the season including a 0-7 ASC mark.