Hit and hope, that's the approach the Texas A&M volleyball team had to take going into its regular season finale.
The Aggies took care of the hitting part with 55 kills and an attack percentage of .307 in sweeping Missouri, 25-18, 29-27, 25-20, at Reed Arena on Saturday.
Now, they must hope the NCAA tournament selection committee believes a tie for fourth in the Big 12 at 18-10 overall mark and 11-9 in the league is worthy of a postseason berth.
"I have no idea, I've tried that," Texas A&M coach Laurie Corbelli said of trying to figure out who makes it in. "[We're] just a bubble team. The committee makes their decisions and we have no idea if we are in the mix.
"We've taken care of business most of November," Corbelli said. "The positive is our RPI [No. 40] is the highest it's ever been [in the last four years] and they apparently use that as their first primary criteria. But they have skipped over teams before and gone to lower RPI teams."
The Aggies were a bubble team in each of the two previous seasons and walked away from the selection show disappointed. This year they won their final four matches to remain in the picture, but they've learned that winning late doesn't always get a team in.
Last year, the A&M won its final six matches and tied for fourth in the Big 12 with Iowa State -- which went to the Elite 8 -- in a 16-14 campaign. In 2007, A&M won its last three matches and ended up 21-10.
On Saturday, the Aggies made one final push for a bid by running their offense efficiently and getting the better of the serving game.
"That may be one of the best serving matches we've had. Just locating the ball right where we wanted it," Corbelli said. "So many people think it's just the power of the serve, but it is really a lot of times the placement of the serve and how it's limiting the opposing team's offense and it helped our blocking slow down so many more balls."
A&M had four aces and won five points on kills from poor receive of serves, including the point that gave the Aggies the lead (28-27) for the first time since 1-0 in the second set.
Serving was also key when A&M trailed 22-19 in that long set.
After a Missouri (18-14, 9-11) violation, senior Dylan Faulkner's serve forced a bad pass that played a big part in Missouri's big hitter, Paola Ampudia, missing wide with a spike attempt. Faulkner then evened the game by dropping an ace in front of Ampudia.
"Dylan did a beautiful job," Corbelli said. "I have full confidence in her serve and defensive play. I think her emotions also was something that stepped up her game even another notch. I was just really proud she was able to go in and make such a great difference."
It was an emotional afternoon, with six of the 10 Aggies who participated stepping on A&M's home court for a final time.
"I'm just glad we saved the senior awards for after the match, because other schools do it before and that's a huge help," Sarah Ammerman said, with tears in her eyes. "It hit me this morning, the whole time getting ready. When I was putting my uniform on it was hitting me pretty hard, but the match comes first and we wanted it really badly so I was able to push it aside and wait until after."
Ammerman had 11 kills and is just one shy of fifth place all-time at A&M with 1,476. She also moved to within three digs of 1,000 with 11.
Mary Baits is fifth in digs at A&M with 1,323 after posting nine against Missouri. She had a team-high 14 kills and is ninth in that category at 1,396.
Batis said the emotion of playing in front of the Aggie fan base hit her late in the third game and almost ruined a good thing.
"The emotion really started to come for me at point 21 for us and after that I made a service error and something else bad happened, so I was, 'OK Mary, you can't cry yet, you have to win first.'
"The whole match, though, we put our emotion into the game, and that's when we play our best and it was good to have that fight back."
Senior Jennifer Banse finished strong with 11 kills and nine digs.
It was all set up by senior Kristen Schevikhoven, who had 44 assists and added nine digs. Schevikhoven, who transferred in her sophomore season, moved to within 31 assists of moving into fifth place all-time at A&M.
Ampudia was the Missouri offense, getting three times as many attacks (61) as any other Tiger. She had 26 kills, many of them from the back row.
Freshman Tori Mellinger led the Aggies with 15 digs, while classmate Lindsey Miller's seven kills gave her a game-high hitting percentage of .400.
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NOTES -- Jola Kelner was the sixth Aggie senior to play and the first to be honored. Kelnar, from Poland, got one start at setter this season and led the Aggies to their best hitting percentage of the campaign. She averaged 7.9 assists per set. ... Batis started has started every match (117) while at A&M.
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