History will have to wait for Mexico volleyball.

Mexico vs Boonville Photo Gallery

The program is trying to reach a 10th win for the first time since the 2001 team won a school-record 13 matches — the most since then has been nine wins most recently achieved in 2020 — but fell short of doing so in Monday’s four-set (28-26, 24-26, 23-25 and 13-25) home loss to Boonville. Mexico’s losing streak to Boonville was extended to six matches.

Head coach Kathryn French said fatigue has been a noticeable trend in her team at this point of the season and that factored into the trend she noticed in the Boonville match. The Lady Pirates (6-10) had this energy that was tough to match and made Mexico (9-7) work in that prolonged 28-26 first-set win and the next two sets were back-and-forth before a collapse in the fourth.

“In that first set, we had that grit, but Boonville pushed back,” French said. “We just didn’t have enough of that push in ourselves to fight that. Their energy across the net from us and our errors is what did us in for tonight. We ultimately beat ourselves.”

Mexico executed on various points when it mattered most at the end of the first set, evading a Boonville set point with one of four Claire Isgrig service aces, and then had to fight as Boonville earned set point in the next three sets. Emily Moppin has several of her seven kills in that first set.

French said a “sense of urgency” needs to be there when sets come down to the wire because she thought Mexico was too “relaxed” at those times. Finishing points, hence finishing sets, was a struggle for the Lady Bulldogs near the net.

“Our outside and our right side (hitters) Emily Moppin and Jaclynn Cline as well as our second outside Nevaeh Long all had great looks tonight,” French said. “We are at that point in the season where we’re ready, we’re hungry, but we got to have that discipline. We’ve got to play our game and play to our strengths, and we can’t rush those strong attacks.”

Jaclynn Cline collected a team-high 19 kills, Isgrig led with 22 assists and Skyler Arnold 17 digs. Cline put down a lot of those kills without much power and instead finesse. French said she and Mexico’s other hitters do well aiming to open spot with two hands.

“They all are really good at acknowledging that part of themselves when maybe they don’t get a good takeoff on the attack of still getting the ball in play and still getting that look,” French said. “With teams like we faced tonight, sometimes you have to adjust every play and be ready to go for the kill.”

French believes that 10th win will come with seven regular season matches left in Mexico’s schedule. The Lady Bulldogs don’t play again until 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Montgomery County (2-11) and then has four days off before their next match so rest will be acquired. 

Mexico also has the season track record and victories that the teams of prior years wouldn’t have earned. Recently, the Lady Bulldogs won two of five matches over the weekend at the Megan Gross Invitational in Warrenton and defeated Bowling Green in five sets at home before that. They also knocked off North Central Missouri Conference foe Kirksville twice in five sets, playing to a 5-1 conference record, and French believes that can improve and Mexico’s overall record can even reach 11 or 12 wins.

“I’m incredibly proud of the girls,” French said. “At the very beginning, when I took this position, we talked about what our goals were and we talked about what we wanted to do this season because a student-led team is a successful team. The girls said ‘We want to win.’ I said, ‘OK, you have the power to win.’”