RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. — A sturdy defense and a balanced offensive attack boosted the Arkansas Tech women's volleyball team to a tough 3-0 sweep of Southern Arkansas Thursday evening in Tucker Coliseum, locking up at least a share of the Golden Suns' second straight Great American Conference regular season title.

The Golden Suns (24-5, 14-0 GAC) collared their 18th consecutive win on the season, and stretched their streak against conference opponents to 26 straight matches. The sweep came nearly two months after the Muleriders (16-13, 7-7 GAC) were the first of just two GAC teams to take the Suns to a fifth set.

Sophomore Madison Nagel posted 16 digs and senior Kaci Jackson picked up her first double-double of the season with 10 kills and 13 digs. Senior Katie Huff led the Suns with 11 kills on the night, hitting .364 and add a pair of blocks, while fellow middle sophomore McCalll Wilkins put up 10 kills on .333 hitting and three blocks. Junior Kaylee Konsella chipped in with six kills and four blocks, while freshman Sarita Stegall dished out 38 assists and classmate Hunter Eshnaur managed 10 kills and 11 digs.

"I knew this was going to be a tough match," coach Kristy Bayer said. "They played us tough down at their place. Southern Arkansas is a really good team. They have a lot of really quality hitters and are a good serving team, so we knew this wasn't going to be an easy match for us.

"We started off slow in the first set. The second set they really battled us, and they also gave us a good push at the end, so it was definitely a good win for our team."

After the Golden Suns took two early leads, including one at 2-1, the Muleriders scored the next four points to go up by three. The guests would hold onto the advantage for a large chunk of the first set, but after they stretched the lead to 13-10, Tech would find its footing. Starting with a kill from Wilkins and including two kills out of Jackson and two blocks from Wilkins and Konsella, the Suns ran off nine straight points to turn a three-point deficit into a six-point advantage. SAU managed three more points after the run, but after getting as close as six down, Huff ran off three straight kills to end the set.

The two sides went back-and-forth from the start of the second set, with SAU scoring the first point of the game and holding onto a narrow lead until stretching it to three at 7-4. A five-point run pushed Tech into its first lead of the set, bolstered by kills from Huff and Jackson, and a block by Huff and Konsella. A four-point run from the Muleriders quickly put them back in the lead, but the hosts ran off four of the next five points to get their biggest lead of the game at 17-14. The three-point lead came again at 18-15 and 19-16, but SAU wouldn't go quietly, taking two-point leads at 23-21 and 24-22. Facing set point, kills by Eshnaur and Wilkins tied things up for the seventh time in the game, followed by an SAU error and a Jackson kill to cap the win. Senior Colleen Wooten put up four of her eight digs during the extended win.

The Suns put together a great start to the third and final set, jumping out to leads of 11-7, 16-11, 19-13 and 21-14 throughout the game. The Muleriders were still able to make a game of it though, closing the gap to just two at 23-21 before kills from Konsella and Wilkins ended things. Wilkins had four kills in the set, while Nagel posted nine digs to keep points alive.

"I felt that we had a lot of different players step up offensively," Bayer said. "Kaci Jackson had another good offensive night. We had four players with double-digit kills, and that just shows what a balanced offense we have. Sarita is able to mix up the ball, and we're still able to do well.

"Really though, I thought our defense is what stood out tonight. One of our best defensive efforts of the season. We had great pursuit on the ball and had some great digs. Madi did a great job on left-back defense. I thought that was our highlight tonight."

With the win, the Golden Suns are down to their final two matches of the regular season, travelling to Harding Tuesday before hosting Ouachita Baptist for Senior Night Nov. 12.