Final Stats THIBODAUX, La. – Desperate for a win and looking to go out as winners on their home court, the Nicholls women's volleyball team matched up well with the Texas-Arlington Mavericks, and although they needed five sets the Colonels defeated UTA 3-2 (25-27, 25-19, 18-25, 25-20, 15-11) Saturday afternoon in Thibodaux.

The match served as senior day for the Colonels (18-12, 5-9 SLC), as the team honored seniors Rachel Yezak and Jordan Karst, and it would be Yezak who not only closed the door on the Mavs (11-17, 7-7 SLC) to win the match, but led the team with 18 kills and 20 digs on the afternoon. The 18 kills are one shy of her career best and the 20 digs is the fourth 20-dig match of the year. Yezak also surpassed 1100 digs in her career during the match.

Karst finished the match with 33 assists to lead the team in that category, as midway through the second set she tallied her 1700th assist of her career moving her closer to getting into the top five all-time in Nicholls history.

The first set seemed to be an indicator that the two teams were evenly matched, as there were 16 ties and nine lead changes in the set alone. The rest of the match would only see 12 ties and five lead changes combined. With the score tied 20-20, the fireworks began as each team traded the next ten points pitting the score at 25-25 with extra points looming. Back-to-Back kills by UTA ended the match putting the Mavs up 1-0.

After going up 1-0 in the second set, the Colonels blitz began taking the next three points to go up 3-1, as the team lead would grow to 5-2 and 6-3 before eventually taking a 13-8 lead halfway through the second set. At that point the Colonels were scoring two points to UTA's one and their lead swelled to 19-14 soon after. Nicholls hit a blistering .349 in the set with 16 kills in route to the 25-19 second set win to tie up the match heading into intermission.

With the match up for grabs heading into the third set, the Colonels found themselves in a deep hole early down 8-3. After scraping back for the next 20 points, the Colonels inched back to within one of the Mavs at 15-14, but that would be the closest that the team would get to UTA in the set as the Mavs went on a four point run to take a commanding 19-14 lead, enough to take the third set 25-18.

Believing they had the Colonels on the ropes, the match was tied five times in the first ten points, but just as UTA did in the third set, the Colonels used a three point run to take an 8-5 lead to get some distance between them and UTA. However, the Mavs came back to make it a one point game with the score 9-8, but a 6-2 run by Nicholls put the Mavs on ice for the most part as the Colonels cruised to the third set win 25-20 setting the table for a deciding fifth set.

The first few points of the fifth set mean the difference in winning or losing, and after eight points the score was tied 4-4, but three critical attack errors by UTA gave Nicholls a 7-4 lead forcing a Mavs timeout. The Mavs made it interesting piecing together runs that would put them within one of the Colonels at 8-7 and 11-10, Nicholls never gave any ground and closed out the last three points on a Jessica Addicks free ball kill, Jennifer Brandt ace and Yezak kill.

In each set the Colonels won they hit above .300 as a team, and had a combined five errors between them. Although the Mavs had double digit kills in four of the five sets, the Colonels had seven blocks and forced UTA into tough spots as they finished with 30 errors on the night to the Colonels 16.

Nicholls also got much better team play than the Mavs, as the Mavs had three players hit in double figures to the Nicholls' four. Behind Yezak, who hit .424 on the day, Addicks had 12 kills and a .417 average, Sarah Terry had 14 kills and a .314 average and Brandt finished with 16 kills and a .231 average. A majority of the Mavs' points came from Amanda Aguilera's 20 kills and Tara Frantz' 18, while Amanda Welsh finished with 63 assists for UTA.

The Colonels finish with a 10-5 record at home, which is the second consecutive year that the Colonels have finished a season with an above .500 home record.

Nicholls closes out the regular season next week on the road, traveling to face the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears and Northwestern State Lady Demons next Thursday and Saturday.