The Mustang women’s volleyball team split two matches Saturday – a 3-1 loss to NAIA No. 2 Columbia and a 3-0 win over Olivet Nazarene – to finish 1-3 at the Hampton Inn Classic.

Master’s is now 4-5 overall on the year.

Master’s head coachAllan Vincefound plenty of encouragement over those two days in Missouri.

Vince appreciated the way his team adjusted to new positions and managed to stay in system against some of the most daunting opponents the NAIA has to offer.

There was junior setter Katie Emmerling, who had been operating a 6-2 system along with Madi Fay. In Missouri, Emmerling aptly ran a 5-1 and spread out the offense to Vince’s liking. She compiled 46, 39, 31 and 38 assists in TMU’s four matches.

Fay, for her part, moved to outside hitter Saturday and was able to balance TMU’s attack and provide ballast on defense. She tallied 10 kills against Columbia and 12 versus Olivet Nazarene. She made only two errors in each match.

The silver linings didn’t end there on a weekend when the Mustangs also lost to William Woods University (MO) and NAIA No. 1 Park University (MO) on Friday.

“We wanted to stay in system to run combination plays,” Vince said, “and McKenna Hafner (pictured above) kept us in system with her passing and played excellent defense to give us more opportunities to score.”

Hafner, a senior, totaled 75 digs in the tournament, giving her 1,236 for her career. She is currently eighth on TMU’s all-time list and should soon pass Master’s hall-of-famer Wendy Penberthy (Jones), who had 1,255 in her career.

At the Hampton Inn Classic on Saturday, Regan Tate led the Mustangs with 12 kills against Columbia, a team that Master’s beat at this tournament last season before Columbia went on to finish as the national runner-up. Despite the result, Tate still believes the Mustangs can play with the country’s elite teams.

“I think one thing we realized during this tournament was that we are more than capable of competing with the higher-level teams in the NAIA when we play our style of volleyball, which is really just giving it our all and playing hard for each other and for Christ,” Tate said. “We have quite a few technical things to iron out, but overall we’re really encouraged.”

Emmerling agreed.

“I think it was a great opportunity for us to play the highest competition early in the season to see where we matched up with them,” she said. “We found ourselves in some deep holes within games, but once we regrouped and relaxed, we played for each other and had some good comebacks. Our last match, you could see the difference of us just playing as a team without any tension and just having fun.”

Here are the box scores for Game 1 and Game 2.

Following the Hampton Inn Classic matches, the Mustangs will open Golden State Athletic Conference play on Sept. 6 at Arizona Christian.

— Game Recap By Mason Nesbitt, TMU Sports Information Director