Volleyball suffers first home loss of season
Tom Mavraganis
Issue date: 10/5/09 Section: Sports
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The 'Necks took sets one (25-23) and three (30-28), but sets two (29-27), four (25-16) and five (15-9) belonged to the Golden Eagles.
"On our side, our perspective of looking at this, we're disappointed with that we were up 2-1 and battling all those games and then to just kind of go downhill in [sets] four and five is frustrating because we have worked too hard to have it end like that," said head coach Kym McKay.
Both teams battled hard in the first three sets, games two and three went over 25 points to declare a winner, but sets four and five were dominated by Oral Roberts.
The Golden Eagles topped Western with a 75-54 kill advantage. The 'Necks were led by sophomore Cait Egan who had 16 kills, while sophomore Megan Toczek finished with 11 kills.
Junior Ellen Miller led the team with 42 assists on the night.
The Golden Eagles posted 97 digs to the 'Necks' 91. Freshman Bridget Murphy led the way for the 'Necks with a career high 28 digs and sophomore Brooke Stittleburg followed with 15.
Freshman Tatum Fredeen posted 20 kills for the Golden Eagles, while senior Juliane Vieira had 66 assists and junior Cassidy Holmes picked up 34 digs.
The Golden Eagles' blocks became a factor in the final two sets of the match, as Oral Roberts got five of its seven-team blocks at that point.
"Going into set five, it was not a huge blocking match on either side of the net. They established their block and it really took some confidence from us, I think you saw a lot of fear on our side. We definitely didn't compete with toughness at that point," McKay said.
The loss puts the 'Necks at 6-11 overall and 3-4 in Summit play this season.
But McKay believes her team is still in the race for the conference crown.
"The Summit League race is very competitive," McKay said. "NDSU is obviously at the top and Centenary is struggling at the bottom, but the other eight teams are very similar. We all have the same chance of making the conference tournament. Every match is so important."
For the Golden Eagles, they move to 8-7 overall and 4-3 in Summit play, holding a one-game advantage over the 'Necks in the conference standings.
The 'Necks have 11 conference games remaining this season with six matches on the road and five at home.
Western will encounter five- straight road matches beginning with Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville tonight.
"It's definitely not going to get any easier from this point out to have four conference matches in a row on the road is going to be a challenge," McKay said.
Western will finish their five- game road trip against conference foes IPFW, Oakland, UMKC and Southern Utah.
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