Coming off the heels of a five-set thriller earlier in the week on the road against in-town rival Ouachita Baptist University, the Henderson State women's volleyball team found themselves involved in another five-set match this time at home against East Central Oklahoma University on Friday evening at the Duke Wells Center. The Lady Reddies (4-25, 0-13 GAC) were unable to top ECU as the Lady Tigers (11-15, 7-7 GAC) came away with a 3-2 victory (26-24, 22-25, 27-25, 15-25, 15-6).
ECU struck first with a 26-24 set one win. The Lady Tigers overcame a quick 4-0 hole to tie the game at 5-all early in the set. From that point on, the match was the definition of a back-and-forth affair with 15 ties, 10 lead changes, and in that stretch neither team held a lead larger than two points.
The Lady Reddies would answer back in the second set with a closely-contested 25-22 win to even match at a game apiece.
The third set continued the trend of extremely close play with the Lady Tigers needing a couple extra points to take the set, 27-25.
Down 2-1 in the match, the Lady Reddies dominated the fourth set to force the decisive fifth set. As a team, HSU hammered home 16 kills and committed only three attack errors for a hitting percentage of .382 en route to the 25-15 win.
As dominating as the Lady Reddies were in the fourth set, the Lady Tigers returned the favor with a dominating performance in the decisive fifth set. In that set, the Lady Tigers tallied nine kills to the Lady Reddies three kills, and used a 9-1 run to seal the set win and earn the match victory.
Rookie outside hitter Sarah Williams bested her single-game high for kills from a match ago (12) as she recorded 15 kills. Sophomore Ty Lindberg matched Willams' kill total with 15 of her own. Lindberg also added 19 defensive digs to secure her 14th double-double of the season. Leading the team in digs for the match was junior libero Lauren Ray who had a match-high 25 digs. Setters Paulina Cross and Brooke Walford nearly split the Lady Reddies' 51 total assists in half as Cross dished out 24 assists and Walford collected 27.
The Lady Reddies are back in action at home on Saturday, October 29th against Southwestern Oklahoma State University. First serve is scheduled for 11:00 a.m.
