Box Score (html)
WEATHERFORD, Okla. – The SWOSU Volleyball team had late leads slip away in both the third and fourth sets, allowing Southern Nazarene to defeat the Bulldogs 3-1 on Tuesday evening at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center.
SWOSU came out connecting on all cylinders, hitting .318 in the opening set behind three kills from
Addie Aman, who finished the set off at 25-12 with a service ace. Southern Nazarene responded in the second set and knotted the match at 1-1 with a 25-20 set win.
The third set was back and forth between the teams with the 10th tie at 16-16 before the Bulldogs scored three straight points to take a 19-6 lead on a block from
JaLisa Hollingshed and
Valerie Vermillion. Kills from Hollingshed and
Danusia Sipa Borgeaud along with a service error from SNU appeared to put the Bulldogs in command at 23-20, but that would be the last point for SWOSU as the Crimson Storm rallied to score the last five points and take the set 25-23.
SWOSU rushed out to a 4-0 lead in the fourth set on kills from Vermillion and Hollingshed and maintained a lead of at least two points until the Crimson Storm got the set tied for the first time at 19-19 with a four-point run. The Bulldogs got consecutive points thanks to a kill from Hollingshed and SNU hitting error to go up 22-20, but again the Storm had an answer and scored four straight points to push ahead to match point. Vermillion got a kill to hold off the first match point, but SNU got the next point to end the match with a 25-23 win in the fourth set.
"I think for the most part our team played pretty well and battled tonight," SWOSU Head Coach
Josh Collins said. "We competed hard, but we made too many critical errors that caused us to lose momentum and we were unable to overcome that tonight."
SWOSU won the statistical battle in many categories, including kills (48-46), digs (76-74) and blocks (8-6) while Southern Nazarene had an advantage of 6-5 in service aces.
DeLayni Fine and Borgeaud led the Bulldogs with 11 kills apiece while Hollingshed added 10 and hit .400 with just two errors in 20 attack attempts.
Kodee Avery totaled a team-high 37 assists and
Kaitlyn Dillon had 20 digs to reach the 20-dig plateau for the eighth time this season.
SWOSU Volleyball (4-10, 1-1 GAC) returns to action on Thursday evening at Northwestern Oklahoma State.
