West Alabma Box Score -- Alabama-Huntsville Box Score

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – With the season's first Great American Conference match for the Henderson State women's volleyball team rapidly approaching on Tuesday, September 11th, the Lady Reddies traveled to Huntsville, Ala. this weekend to tune up for the conference slate and take part in the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) Classic.
 
On Thursday night, the Lady Reddies (1-5) played a pair of familiar opponents in the University of West Alabama (UWA) and UAH, two teams that the Lady Reddies hosted just last week for the HSU Classic. The familiarity against the two teams did result in improvement for HSU, but it did not translate into wins as the Lady Reddies lost to UWA 3-2 and then fell 3-1 against UAH in the nightcap.
 
The match with West Alabama would end as a closely-contested thriller with the winner not being decided until the very end of the fifth set. HSU took the opening set of that match against UWA thanks in large part to a strong .385 attack percentage from the Lady Reddies hitters. After losing their lead midway that opening set, the Lady Reddies rallied to knot the set at 22-all, prompting a timeout by West Alabama. Following that timeout, the Lady Reddies would capture the next three points in the match to secure the opening set.
 
West Alabama bounced back and edged Henderson in the second set 25-23. With the match tied at a set each, and the third set tied at seven-all, the Lady Reddies went on a monster 8-0 run to establish control in the set. They would go on to cruise to a 25-16 set three win.
 
Looking to stave off a match defeat, the Tigers (4-1) dominated the early part of the fourth set and notched a 25-22 win to force the decisive fifth set.
 
That fifth set was played as close as can be as there were six different tie scores and neither team led by more than three points during the set. Despite how close the set was being played, the Tigers were in control for much of the set. The Lady Reddies were able to open up a three-point lead mid-way through the set (8-5), but the Tigers rallied to ties the score at eight and then pushed ahead to take the lead before ending with the 15-13 set win and subsequent match win.
 
The tough loss for the Lady Reddies against West Alabama needed to be a quick afterthought as the Lady Reddies turned right around to take on the host school Alabama-Huntsville.
 
The opening set against Alabama-Huntsville reflected that mindset as Henderson took the set 25-20 on the strength of a .435 attack percentage as a team. From that set on though, the Lady Reddies were unable to keep that momentum and solid hitting going as they dropped the next three sets and saw their attack percentage drop to .242 in the second set, to .000 in the third set, and to .067 in the fourth set
 
In the loss to UWA, sophomore middle blocker, Jessica Moss had a standout performance as she attacked at a .571 clip that included nine kills on 14 attacks and only one attack error. As solid as her offensive numbers were, Moss was more impressive on the defensive end as she denied four UWA attacks with solo blocks and contributed to 11 more rejections on block assists. Moss would add five more block assists against UAH.
 
The Lady Reddies have now lost five matches in a row and will look to break that streak on Friday as they will play a match against the University of West Georgia at 9:00 am and a match against Union University at 11:00 am.