Box Score (html)
WEATHERFORD, Okla. – Another loud and spirited crowd was on hand to help cheer on the SWOSU Volleyball team as they swept Northwestern Oklahoma State 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 28-26) on Thursday evening at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center.
After winning the first two sets, the Bulldogs found themselves in a hole early in the third set and they played from behind throughout. Northwestern rushed out to an 8-3 lead and found their largest margin at 20-11 and pushed closer to taking the set with a 23-16 lead before the Bulldogs made a stand.
Kayla Hebert went back to serve and the Bulldogs scored three points with a pair of kills from
Carly Zak and one from
DeLayni Fine, but a kill by Natalie Fahey of NWOSU made it 24-20 in favor of the Rangers and left SWOSU facing four set points. Zak finished off a long rally with a kill, giving her the serve for SWOSU trailing 24-21 after the side out. Fine hit another kill before Zak aced the Rangers to get within one and the set was tied up after a ball handling error on Northwestern.
The Rangers stopped that particular stretch with a kill to go on top 25-24, but
Jill Green tied the match back up at 25-25, sending the senior,
Kaila Lancaster to serve. Lancaster got the Bulldogs on top with an ace, but a NWOSU kill tied the match at 26-26 until Fine and Hebert finished things off with back-to-back kills, giving SWOSU a 28-26 win of the set and a 3-0 sweep of the match.
"At a timeout late in the third set, we just talked about the set not being over and how we had to dig deep and find some energy and find heart and we did just that," SWOSU Head Coach
Josh Collins said following the victory. "Those are the games you build belief on and now we should believe that we can come back and win at any time, no matter what the score of the set is. We're playing really well right now and I credit our practices for that, our energy and excitement from every single player has been good and that can take us a long ways."
Zak was again magnificent for the Bulldogs, recording a double-double with a team-high 14 kills and a career-high 17 digs to go along with four blocks. Zak hit .256 for the match after committing just four hitting errors and she had one service ace, which came during her crucial service side late in the match.
Jill Green had her best match in a SWOSU uniform, putting down a career-high 10 kills and hitting .143 with one dig and one block.
Hebert, who also had key serves down the stretch and scored the final point with a kill, finished the match with 29 assists and 13 digs while putting down six kills with no errors for a .600 hitting percentage. She also had two blocks in the match as the Bulldogs again tied their season high with eight blocks in the match.
Paige Holt had a team-best five blocks and
Kelsi Schmidtberger had three to go along with four kills.
The win improves the Bulldogs to 6-4 on the year, setting a new standard at SWOSU for the best record through ten games. SWOSU is also 3-0 in Great American Conference play for the first time in program history and 2-0 at home in the Pioneer Cellular Event Center with back-to-back rivalry wins on their home floor this week.
SWOSU Volleyball has the weekend off before returning to action on Tuesday with a trip to Durant, where they will face Southeastern Oklahoma State.
