Texas Lutheran Upsets No. 3 Trinity; Heads to First SCAC Championship

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Texas Lutheran's historic season continues as the Bulldogs handed the third-ranked Trinity Tigers, the 2022 SCAC regular season champions and the tournament's No. 1 seed, their first SCAC loss of the season - upsetting the Tigers to make their first ever SCAC Championship appearance. The last time the Bulldogs volleyball program played for a conference championship was in 2010 as a member of the American Southwest Conference. This is the Bulldogs first win over the Tigers since their Sept. 19, 2015, match in Seguin and snaps a 15-match losing streak to the Tigers. 

The Bulldogs pulled off the upset in a 27-25, 22-25, 25-23, 20-25, 15-6, five-set thriller in Reid Arena on the campus of Colorado College. Texas Lutheran is the first team outside of Trinity, Southwestern, and Colorado College to make the SCAC Tournament Championship since Rhodes College made the championship in 1991. This is the Bulldogs' second AVCA Top 25 win of the season - joining their win over No. 18 Transylvania in September.

Texas Lutheran hit over .300 in the third and fifth sets including .375 in the third-set and .400 in the decisive fifth-set. Trinity entered Friday's match with just seven set losses in conference on the season.

In what was a dog fight throughout between two of the NCAA West Region's best teams, Texas Lutheran took a 9-3 lead to start the fifth set and closed the match on a 13-4 run for the historic victory. Tanyse Moehrig (Spring Branch/Smithson Valley) was huge in the decisive fifth set with three kills and a block while Madison Weisinger (Friendswood/Friendswood) produced two kills, two blocks, and a service ace in the Bulldogs final run to clinch the match.

Shavonne Respondek (San Antonio/Madison) led the Bulldogs with 30 assists - matching her career-high - while Julia Chew (Cypress/Cy-Fair) followed close behind with a career-high 27 assists. Respondek would register another double-double, her second of the day, by adding 10 digs. Chew and Respondek, two of the SCAC's premier servers, would each register two service aces as they are both currently tied for second in the SCAC with 47 service aces each this season.

Texas Lutheran had five hit 10 or more kills as Maddy Schultz (Richmond/Needville) and Tanyse Moehrig notched 13 kills, and Madison Weisinger (Friendswood/Friendswood) and Brylie Nedd (Sealy/Sealy) hit 12 kills and Emily Mixon (Woodville/Woodville) added 10 kills. Weisinger was also a force defensively, tallying six blocks along the Bulldogs front. Maddy Schultz and Moehrig added three blocks each. Weisinger also finished with a season-high three service aces.

Lexi Morris (Victoria/Victoria West) played a vital role at libero, totaling a team-high 21 digs. Following her performance, Morris moves into third place in SCAC history in career digs - passing Sophie Merrifield of Colorado College, who had 2,499 from 2012-15 - and surpasses the 2,500 career dig mark.

Texas Lutheran returns to action Saturday afternoon as they take on host Colorado College in their first ever SCAC Championship appearance at 11 AM MDT/12 PM CST. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.

For more information on Texas Lutheran volleyball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (TLU Volleyball), Twitter (@TLU_VB), and Instagram (@tlu_vb) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).