WEATHERFORD, Okla. – A dominant all-around effort allowed the SWOSU Volleyball team to defeat Northwestern Oklahoma State 3-0 on Tuesday evening in front of a rowdy crowd at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center.
SWOSU scored the first six points of the match on the service of
Allison Russell and never looked back, putting down 17 kills and running away with the set 25-9. The second set was more closely contested with six ties and two lead changes, the final coming after the Dawgs turned a 9-10 deficit into a 12-10 lead, again on the service of Russell. SWOSU ultimately ended the set at 25-22 with a kill from
Jenny Tackett and took the all-important 2-0 lead.
The third set was tied just one time, at 1-1, and the Dawgs went on a long 7-0 run on the serve of
Jenny Tackett, who served up two aces during that span. SWOSU's lead would balloon as high as 11 in the set, which is where the match would end with a
Maicee Morgan service ace on match point of 25-14.
Morgan led the offensive attack with 15 kills and three service aces while
Emily Wood had her best match of the season with a double-double of 14 kills and 14 digs.
Jenny Tackett and
Brylee Burroughs added seven and six kills, respectively, while each player committed just one hitting error. As a team, SWOSU finished with 47 kills against just 12 hitting errors, good for a .324 attack percentage.
Allie Hoang directed the offense with 41 assists while adding nine digs and one block while
Kaitlyn Dillon had a team-leading 16 digs, helping SWOSU to a 61-45 advantage in digs.
"It's no secret that we've had our ups and downs this season, but hopefully this can be a point where we turn the corner," SWOSU Head Coach
Josh Collins said following the match. "We played a really talented and really well-coached team tonight, but we had some players who stepped up and played well for us. I think this was by far our most complete performance of the season and it's going to take effort like this on a consistent basis for us to get to where we want to be."
SWOSU improves to 7-8 on the year and 3-2 in Great American Conference play with the win and they'll remain at home for two more matches this weekend. The Bulldogs host Arkansas-Monticello on Friday evening at 6:00 pm before facing Southern Arkansas on Saturday at 11:00 am.
