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East Central at SWOSU Tuesday, November 5, 7 pm Live Stats | Live Video

SWOSU at Arkansas Tech Saturday, November 9, 10 am

Weekly Notes (pdf)

Setting the Scene
      With five matches remaining in the 2013 season, the SWOSU volleyball team is fighting for positioning within the Great American Conference. The Bulldogs will look to avenge an earlier loss at East Central when they host the Tigers on Tuesday before a trip to Russellville to face Arkansas Tech on Saturday morning.
      ECU and ATU are the teams sitting directly above SWOSU in the GAC standings, giving the Bulldogs two huge opportunities to improve their standing this week. SWOSU enters the week as winners of three of their last six matches, including a four-set victory at Northwestern Oklahoma State last Thursday evening in Alva.

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Previous Meetings
      East Central and SWOSU have played eight times dating back to 2008 while the Bulldogs have faced Arkansas Tech nine times since the 2007 season. ECU has won three consecutive meetings against the Bulldogs, including a sweep earlier this season in Ada, and they lead the all-time series 6-2. Arkansas Tech is 8-1 all-time against SWOSU, but the lone victory for the Bulldogs came in the team's only meeting last season, a five-set victory in Weatherford.
 
The Coaches
      Josh Collins is in his second season as the head volleyball coach at SWOSU after serving as an assistant the previous seven seasons. His first team finished 13-20 overall but rallied for a 10-4 conference record, finishing fourth in the Great American Conference. He is currently 23-38 as the Lady Bulldogs head man but 15-8 in GAC contests.
      Dave Thorn is the only head coach in the East Central volleyball program's history, now in his sixth season at ECU where he has guided the Lady Tigers to a record of 54-111 in the first five seasons.
      Kristi Bayer is in her tenth season of an extremely successful tenure at Arkansas Tech. In her ten years at Tech, Bayer, who was named the 2008 GSC West Division Coach of the Year and earned GAC Coach of the Year honors in 2011, has compiled a 228-95 overall record and is the all-time winningest volleyball coach at Tech in terms of wins.
 
Last Time Out
      Halloween in Alva provided little terror for the SWOSU volleyball team as the Bulldogs fended off all the tricks Northwestern Oklahoma State had in store to earn the season-sweep of the Rangers with a four-set victory (25-18, 15-25, 25-15, 25-23).
      The Bulldogs eclipsed the .200 mark in hitting percentage for just the eighth time this season, hitting .209 for the match with 55 kills against 23 hitting errors. Four players reached double figures in kills, led by Joey Collins with 17 and Alison Cole with 15. Shayne Haley tallied a season-high 12 kills while Carly Zak put down 10.
      Breann Whitaker tallied a season-high with 53 assists in the match and she recorded her eighth double-double of the season by adding a team-high 13 digs. Collins also notched a double-double, her 11th of the year, adding 11 digs to go along with her hitting performance.
 
Standings Check
      Harding and Southern Nazarene have separated themselves atop the Great American Conference standings, but beyond that the positioning is wide open. SWOSU enters the week 6-5 in conference play and tied for fifth place with Ouachita Baptist, but they are within two games of third-place Arkansas Tech, one of this week's opponents.
 
Single-Season Block Mark
      With five blocks on Thursday at Northwestern Oklahoma State, Alison Cole eclipsed the SWOSU single-season record for total blocks. Cole now has 117 blocks for the year, topping the previous best of 114 by Kasandra Gurtner in 2007.
      Cole had previously eclipsed the single-season record for assist blocks, a mark that she now holds with 94, and she is on pace to become the first player in SWOSU volleyball history to average more than one block per set for an entire season.
      The senior from Long Island, Kan., ranks second in career blocks with 218, the most for any player in a two-year span at the school. She currently ranks second in the GAC with an average of 1.09 blocks per set.
 
Top Five Bound
      Several single-season marks have been set by the SWOSU volleyball squad this season and one player adding her name to the top ten lists recently is Kaila Lancaster.
      The sophomore defensive specialist has served as the Bulldogs' primary libero this season and, in doing so, amassed 387 digs for the year. That mark ties her for fifth-best single-season mark at SWOSU with Amanda Ortega from 2005.
      With 719 digs in less than two seasons at SWOSU, the Hewitt, Texas native needs just three digs to move into sixth on the career list at the school.
 
Looking Ahead
            The string of Tuesday games continues next week as the Bulldogs hit the road for a return trip against Cameron before hosting Southeastern Oklahoma State and Midwestern State to close out the regular season.