Press conference video courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics.
Match #2: No. 11 SMU 3, No. 8 Texas A&M 0
S1: SMU, 27-25; S2: SMU, 25-19; S3: SMU, 25-20
Records: Texas A&M (0-2, 0-0), SMU (1-0, 0-0)
Box Score
The win column will have to wait for College Station.
No. 8 Texas A&M dropped its second straight game to open up the season, this time to No. 11 SMU in three sets on Sunday afternoon.
The sweep is the first for the Aggies since last season against the Mustangs.
A&M was once again without its superstar senior outside hitter Kyndal Stowers, who tweaked her back in warmups before the Aggies' opening game on Friday.
Stowers was expected to play against the Mustangs, according to head coach Jamie Morrison, but warmups didn’t go the 2025 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player’s way, leaving her unavailable for the second match in a row.
“She tried to give it a go this morning,” Morrison said. “So it's not anything that's a year-long or anything like that. It's just when what happened decides to loosen up a little bit, we'll give it another go.”
Hitting remained a struggle for the Aggies, as they attacked at a .125 clip. With attacking being such a strength in 2025, it stands out as a frustrating performance for a unit formerly known for their hitting prowess.
Errors were another thing carried over into game two, with A&M committing 22 to SMU’s 14.
Graduate outside Natalie Ring led the way again for A&M in kills with 13. Sophomore outside hitter Megan Fitch, taking over for the injured Stowers, had 10 of her own.
SMU sophomore outside Suli Davis had the Aggies' number all day long, leading the Mustangs with 15 kills.
After the Aggies grabbed an early lead in the first set, the Mustangs went on a 4-0 run that forced a Morrison timeout. That timeout did little to halt the SMU momentum, but A&M continued to battle.
A four-point run got the Aggies back in striking distance, but a kill from Davis sealed the opener for the Mustangs, 27-25.
“We have a lot of elite athletes that are spread across a lot of universities,” Morrison said. “And I think you're going to see that throughout the year, different teams at different times of the year, having peaks and valleys. And you're going to see these matches where things are going back and forth and 27-25 and 25-23. You're going to see that over and over again across the board.”
The competitiveness that A&M displayed in the first frame was nowhere to be found in set two. SMU went on run after run, concluding on another kill from Davis, 25-19.
Frame three looked a lot like the second, with the Mustangs pulling away in the middle of the set on the back of multiple 3-0 runs. Timeouts from Morrison only delayed the inevitable, with SMU taking the set and match, 25-20.
“We've got to make sure that we learn lessons quickly within this and throughout this season,” Morrison said. “And we talked a little bit about those within the match, but I'm happy with the progress our team's making, and we're really excited to get back home and get back to work in our practice gym.”
The Aggies were beaten in all facets of the game, including kills (42-36), digs (40-31) and blocks (13-7).
The loss marks the first time A&M has lost two straight games to open a season since 2008.
The Aggies will look to earn the first win back in College Station in the Texas A&M Invitational, with the weekend slate kicking off with Grand Canyon on Friday, Aug. 28, at 11 a.m. CT.
