Box Score (html)
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – SWOSU Volleyball is on to the Great American Conference Tournament semifinals following a 3-1 victory over Arkansas Tech in the quarterfinals on Thursday evening at Bank of the Ozarks Arena.
The Bulldogs dropped the opening set 25-21, but rebounded and won the final three by scores of 25-15, 28-16 and 25-21 to improve to 3-3 all-time in the opening round of the GAC Tournament. SWOSU also earns their first postseason victory over Arkansas Tech, a three-time GAC Tournament winner.
SWOSU had to play from behind for most of the night, first after dropping the first set and later as they came-from-behind to win both the third and fourth sets. The Bulldogs trailed 22-20 late in the third set, but got back-to-back blocks from
Kelsi Schmidtberger and
Jill Green to tie the set at 22-all and force Arkansas Tech to spend a timeout. The set was tied on 18 different occasions and SWOSU had to fight off set point at 25-24 with a pair of kills from
Carly Zak that made it 26-25. Once ATU tied the set at 26-all, SWOSU got kills from
Paige Holt and
Kayla Hebert to finish the set off at 28-26 and took a 2-1 lead in the match.
The Bulldogs again faced an uphill battle in the fourth set, falling behind by as many as five points at 16-11 in the middle of the set. SWOSU got a few points back on the serve of Hebert, getting a block assist from Zak and Holt along with kills from each player to make it 16-15. Tech again used a spurt to push the lead back to three at 20-17, but SWOSU closed with eight of the final nine points to finish off the set at 25-21 and end the match in four.
SWOSU was led by
Carly Zak, who posted a double-double with 18 kills and 13 digs while hitting at an efficient .224 clip.
Kelsi Schmidtberger and
Jill Green each had 13 kills apiece and hit above .270, helping the Bulldogs to a .245 hitting clip for the match.
Kayla Hebert also posted a double-double with 51 assists and a match-high 18 digs while
Kaitlyn Dillon added 17 digs in her first GAC Tournament contest.
"I thought that when we started the match, we got a little bit nervous and that caused us to play tight," SWOSU Head Coach
Josh Collins said. "As the match went on, we got into a groove and started playing SWOSU Volleyball. You could start to feel it and know that things were going to click and they did. Postseason victories are hard to come by, so we will enjoy this one for a short amount of time before turning our focus to Southeastern."
The victory improves SWOSU to 14-16 on the year and moves the Bulldogs into the GAC Tournament semifinals for the second consecutive season. Awaiting the Dawgs on Friday evening will be No. 8-seed Southeastern Oklahoma State, who upset the top-seed Harding in five sets on Thursday. First serve from that semifinal contest is set for 6:00 pm on Friday.
