Through nearly two months of the season, the University of the Incarnate Word volleyball team has distinguished itself for its resiliency.

The Cardinals have shown that no deficit is too much to overcome.

In its home opener, the Cardinals’ issue wasn’t falling behind. It was maintaining a lead.

UT-Rio Grande Valley erased late deficits in two sets, including a set point, and swept the Cardinals 25-22, 25-18, 26-24 Thursday at the McDermott Center in Southland Conference play.

It was the first SLC win for the Vaqueros (5-7, 1-1), who previously were in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) before leaving in July.

UIW (7-6, 0-3) lost its third straight conference match. It lost its first two league matches on the road in five sets to Texas A&M-Commerce and Southeastern Louisiana last weekend, overcoming a 0-2 hole in the latter.

“I feel like it’s, honestly, more tough when we know what we can do and we need to push through and just do it,” UIW senior libero Audrey Patton said. “We have great players, and we know we can face adversity or come back from a small deficit, so our time is now.”

The Cardinals, who host Northwestern State at 1 p.m. Saturday, couldn’t hang on to advantages in the latter stages of two of the three frames.

In the opening set, UIW led 21-18 but UT-Rio Grande Valley closed with a 7-1 run to prevail. In a third stanza that featured 13 ties and six lead changes, UIW served for the set at 24-23 but the Vaqueros reeled off the final three points to win.

In both instances, the Cardinals were hampered by passing woes.

“Little things like that do matter,” Patton said. “Our serve-receive tonight was not as good as we needed it to be to win … or give our setter opportunities.”

Senior outside hitter Ilana De Assis had a match-high 21 kills and 13 digs to lead UT-Rio Grande Valley. Sophomore outside hitter Nadine Zech added 12 kills and senior Claudia Lupescu added 10 kills as the Vaqueros had a .303 hitting percentage. Sophomore libero Celianiz Cabranes recorded a match-high 23 digs.

Finley Evans paced UIW with eight kills. No players reached double figures in kills as the Cardinals finished with a .127 hitting clip.

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