What started off as a gloomy day for Colorado State University-Pueblo athletics, with its first football loss in 24 years, got worse as the volleyball team took sole claim to last place in the RMAC West Division.

New Mexico Highlands University beat the ThunderWolves at Massari Arena, 25-19, 25-23, 18-25, 25-19, as CSU-Pueblo lost its eighth straight match.

Cowgirl, junior, outside hitter Doreen Zamora led the Cowgirls with 16 kills and 13 digs, while Ashley Murray had 14 and 13, respectively. Liviana Gallegos helped with 25 digs.

“Their whole team did a good job with digs,” CSU-Pueblo head coach Chris Jonson said. “They weren’t going to let the ball hit the ground.”

Coach Jonson commented on how most of the game’s stats were fairly even, but attack percentage was the one that stood out to him.

NMHU had a 22.6 attack percentage while CSU-Pueblo only had a 15.1 attack percentage. That ThunderWolf attack percentage dropped to 0 in game four.

The Cowgirls managed to stay on the offensive side throughout the game attempting 22 more attacks.

“It felt like they were coming at us quite a bit,” Jonson said. “We knew it was going to happen. A team full of seniors we knew that was going to happen. They just kept coming at us.”

The ThunderWolves made only one more error than their counterpart, but it was when they made those errors that made a big difference.

“At crucial times we made errors,” Jonson said. “It speaks to the youth of our team. At the crucial moments, we try so hard not to make the mistakes, but then we wind up making them.”

Senior Lindsay Black led the Pack with 11 kills and a 39.3% attack percentage.

The match pitted the two teams with the worst records in the RMAC West Division. NMHU was playing better volleyball coming into the match, though, going 2-3 in their last five, and improved to 6-4 in their last ten.

The Pack, on the other hand, had only won two games during their 7-match winless streak going into the match with the Cowgirls.

The ThunderWolves will try to turn things around as they play host to Adams State College, at 7 p.m. on Sept. 23, at Massari Arena. It will be a tough task without senior, leader Caitlyn Jewell who is out for the season with personal health reasons.

Adams State will come to Pueblo with a 4-11 record, 1-3 in RMAC play. The Pack now sits at 2-10 overall and has yet to win a conference game in four tries.