After three weeks spent battling some of the best competition in the state, the A&M Consolidated volleyball team mostly struggled with itself during a sweep of Klein Collins on Tuesday night.

The 14th-ranked Lady Tigers fought ball-control issues and a letdown following the prestigious Pearland Tournament to get past Collins 25-17, 25-20, 25-20 in a nondistrict match at Tiger Gym.

Consol improved to 18-8 with a victory that was comfortable in terms of score but somewhat sloppy by Lady Tiger standards.

"We started off slow," Consol coach Cydryce McMillian said. "I thought we picked it up at times and started playing at the level we're accustomed to playing. We were doing enough little things to win. However, we are a better team than we showed tonight."

The Lady Tigers went 4-3 over the weekend at Pearland. Consol spent the two previous weeks at tough tournaments in Duncanville and New Braunfels.

"Pearland was a very taxing weekend ... emotionally, physically and mentally," McMillian said. "It took a lot out of us. Klein Collins has a good team, but I know it was a game we could win. We kind of needed to let down just a little, because we were playing at a high caliber all weekend long."

Consol's serve receive let down a lot. Collins (12-10) won five points with serves in Game 2, including three aces during a stretch of six consecutive points.

The poor passing prevented the Lady Tigers from effectively running their offense to take advantage of veterans Erika Arthur and Julia Westerbur in the middle. Arthur, the team's leading hitter, didn't get a kill attempt in the first 24 points of the match.

"It was mostly about ball-handling," McMillian said. "It has been one of those rollercoaster areas on our team. We have the hitters. We have the setters, but we've got to have the ball control. It's the main focus for us every day."

Arthur had back-to-back kills to cap a 5-0 run that gave Consol a 16-10 lead in the opener. Collins didn't get closer than five points the rest of the game.

Collins led for much of Game 2 and caused McMillian to call her only timeout of the match after taking a 20-19 edge. Consol responded as Ashten Landry delivered a kill then served out the last five points, including an ace to win the game.

Collins scored the first two points of Game 3 but never led again. Arthur delivered three kills and combined with Emily Nixon on a block during a match-ending flurry.

Landry, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter, led the Lady Tigers with nine kills. Arthur finished with eight and Westerbur added seven.

Junior Casey Shomaker took advantage of getting most of the playing time at setter to finish with 20 assists. Jessica Wagner led Consol in digs with 14.

Consol will play road matches against Brenham and Tomball before starting District 12-5A play at Harker Heights on Sept. 10.

The Lady Tigers won both subvarsity matches. The JV (7-1) took a 25-21, 25-22 victory as Taylor Williams had seven kills. The freshmen (5-1) won 25-15, 25-19 with Jordan Dickson getting six kills.