Box Score (html)
WEATHERFORD, Okla. – SWOSU Volleyball swept East Central 3-0 on Friday evening in the Pioneer Cellular Event Center 25-21, 25-22, 25-8. The win gives the Bulldogs a season sweep over the Tigers without ever dropping a set, and punches their ticket to the Great American Conference post-season tournament.
The Bulldogs took control of set one early on, after back-to-back kills by
Jill Green giving SWOSU a 12-7 lead and forcing an ECU timeout. From that point on the Dawgs held firm with their five point lead, fighting off Tiger rallies to tie the set back up by always having an answer. East Central got within two at 23-21, but a sneaky point from setter
Kayla Hebert and a
Carly Zak final kill gave the Bulldogs the 25-21 set-one victory.
SWOSU was faced with a tough second set, battling with the Tigers the whole way through with neither team extending a lead greater than three points the entire set. The Dawgs utilized great defense while taking advantage of ECU's hitting errors to collect consistent points throughout the set.
Kelsi Schmidtberger and
Jill Green both came up with huge blocks late in the set to give the Bulldogs a brief lead 19-18 and again to knot the set back up at 20-20. From there, Zak found the ECU floor on four kills for SWOSU and at 24-22 Hebert stepped up to the service line and delivered the set-ending ace to take a 2-0 lead over the Tigers.
In the third, SWOSU took their momentum from the previous two sets and utilized it, jumping out to a 13-1 lead courtesy of a collection of kills from
DeLayni Fine,
Paige Holt, Zak and Schmidtberger coupled with three ECU hitting errors. From there the Tigers added a few points off kills, but the Dawgs were too much and dominated the rest of the way by holding East Central to single digits and taking the set 25-8.
Zak ended as the team high in kills with 15, followed by Fine with nine, Green and Schmidtberger with six, and Holt adding five to the attack. The Dawg defense held ECU to a mere .034 hitting percentage on the night and totaling eight team blocks.
Kaitlyn Dillon and Hebert each dug the team leading 11 balls, and Hebert added 33 assists from the setter position.
The eight points SWOSU allowed in the last set was the fewest points they have allowed in a set to 25 all season, and the first time this year they have held a team to single digits in a set other than the fifth. With only three matches remaining in the regular season, SWOSU is within three games between five schools and can has the opportunity to improve their seeding in the GAC Tournament.
"We've got a big weekend with two conference matches and it feels good to get it started with a win," SWOSU Head Coach
Josh Collins said. "We need to use the momentum from tonight's victory and go try and get another one tomorrow night."
The Bulldogs (11-15, 7-6 GAC) now turn their attention to Southeastern Oklahoma State for their fourth-straight home match inside the Pioneer Cellular Event Center starting at 6 pm.
