HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – SWOSU Volleyball found a way to avoid an early exit at the GAC Tournament after battling back to beat 6-seeded East Central in five sets in Thursday's quarterfinal. The Bulldogs trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before winning the fourth set and finally edging the Tigers in a tightly contested fifth, 15-13.
The win advances SWOSU (19-8) into the semifinals for a third straight tournament. They'll take on the No. 2 seed, Oklahoma Baptist, tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. after the Bison swept through their opening round matchup against Ouachita.
Thursday's fifth set was… stressful. Both teams sat tied on the scoreboard on eight separate occasions and fans watched the lead change hands another three times.
Trailing 11-10 in the fifth, SWOSU finally just built a wall at the net. The Bulldogs got blocks on the next four points, led by
Zoey Sparks who was in on three of those, to completely flip the outlook. The block party left the Bulldogs needing just one point in the next three tries to end the match and they finally did exactly that.
SWOSU finished with 11 blocks in the game. Six of those came in the fifth set.
The Dawgs won the second and fourth sets to get to the fifth. In both of those victories, they were dominant. They held the Tigers to .000 hitting in a 25-15 second set and never trailed in the fourth's 25-21 result.
A match high seven errors in the morning's 25-22 opening-set loss could probably get chalked up to postseason jitters. Those errors were reduced in the third, but the Tigers hit .289 with 18 kills – both match bests for them – to again outscore SWOSU 25-22.
SWOSU's box score was evenly distributed for the match. Four attackers finished with double-digit kills led by a trio of players,
Zoey Sparks,
Hailey Smith and
Maicee Morgan, who all had 12.
That ties Spark's season high kill total while Morgan finished one shy of hers.
Meanwhile,
Terez Chavez also tied her season high with 31 assists. Setting partner duo
Cameron Turner added another 21.
Jada Permenter (21) and
Lacy Mott (20 digs, 11 kills) combined for 41 digs.
Final team numbers showed SWOSU hitting .224 compared to .182 from the opposition. The Bulldogs also edged the Tigers in aces, 11-8, and blocks, 11-7.
