TUCSON, Ariz. – The Aggies hit .299 with four players hitting double-digit kills and the New Mexico State volleyball team swept the season series with WAC foe Dixie State with a four-set win, 25-17, 20-25, 25-17, 25-19, at the Sporting Chance Center in Tucson on Tuesday afternoon. This was the Aggies 22^nd WAC regular-season win in a row.
 
"Dixie State plays hard, we had to work for our points," said head coach Mike Jordan. "Statistically we were pretty dominant at times but it's so early in the season that you never feel comfortable that you're in control. Set two was a high-error set and that's the second game in a row we've done that, so we are going to have to get better at managing the game. I loved the balance we had on offense but it's early, we've got a lot of work to do but there's reason to be optimistic.
 
NM State (2-0, 2-0 WAC) raced out to a 15-10 lead at the media timeout before eventually extending the lead to 23-14 after a kill from Lia Mosher. Dixie State continued to battle but the Aggies closed set one with a 25-17 victory. NM State came out of the gates hot, hitting .500 in the first frame.
 
However, the Aggie offense sputtered a bit in the second set with nine hitting errors as DSU tied up the match 1-1 with a 25-20 win in the set.
 
The third set started back-and-forth with NM State trailing 13-12 just before the media timeout. Then, Mosher smoked a kill to start a 13-3 blitz from the Aggies to close out set number three 25-17. New Mexico State bounced back from its poor hitting in the second set with 19 kills on 38 swings in third.
 
Following a dominant end to the third set, the two teams again went point for point to start the fourth set with the Trailblazers taking a 15-14 lead into the media timeout. Just like in the third, New Mexico State caught fire and closed out the match with an 11-4 run to put the exclamation point on the series sweep.
 
Shaney Lipscomb led the way with 12 kills on 27 swings. Freshman Victoria Barrett was impressive again with 11 kills and a .304 hitting percentage. Mosher was red-hot for the second night in a row with 11 kills on .588 hitting and Katie Birtcil hit 10 kills after recording a career-high 11 in the first matchup with Dixie State.
 
The Aggie setter duo of Natalie Mikels and Carly Aigner-Swesey were on point with Mikels assisting on 26 kills and Aigner-Swesey on 24 as NM State hit .299 with 59 kills.  Freshman libero Darian Markham recorded 12 digs and Savannah Davison added 11 and nine kills.
 
NM State held DSU to 36 kills on .192 hitting and recorded eight service aces on the afternoon.
 
The Aggies will now have a week off before returning to the court at UT Rio Grande Valley on Monday, Feb. 8, and Tuesday, Feb. 9. Both of those matches can be streamed live on the WAC Digital Network.