RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – A week after suffering a reverse sweep defeat at home to the hands of East Central, the Arkansas Tech volleyball team flipped the script on Thursday night and fought relentlessly hard on come out on the winning side of a reverse sweep, beating Southern Arkansas at home in five sets.
As a reverse sweep would indicate, the Golden Suns fell behind in the match with the Muleriders 0-2, losing set one, 25-18, and set two, 25-14. In each of those sets, the Golden Suns were unable to overcome a plethora of attack errors as they had 15 combined across the two sets. Conversely, the Muleriders had just two attack errors over the first two sets.
The tide changed in favor of the Golden Suns in set three.
In that set, the Golden Suns' offense got going and was markedly more efficient with 14 kills and just three errors. On the other end, SAU began to make a sizable amount of attack errors with eight in the third set alone.
That set also saw the Golden Suns get out to a quick start and an early 7-3 lead. SAU was able to get within two points on several occasions in the next few minutes of the match, but a 4-0 scoring burst by Tech put them up by six, 14-8. The Muleriders had an answer for that and scored five unanswered to pull within a point, 14-13.
The Golden Suns were able to stem that tide and rattled off four-straight points on their end to reestablish control. That proved to be enough of an advantage for the Golden Suns to ride out the remainder of the set and force a fourth set.
Set four had the Muleriders in relative control about midway through as they held a seven-point lead, 15-8. From that point, however, the Golden Suns would score seven of the next eight points to close within a point, 16-15. After SAU scored consecutive points to go up by three, 18-15, the Golden Suns pushed back again, this time scoring four of the next five points to tie the set at 19-all.
A kill by SAU broke the tie, but that merely slightly slowed down the Tech offense as they responded with four-straight points to swing ahead by three, 23-20. A ball handling error was called on Tech during the next rally, but that would be the last point for SAU as the Golden Suns closed out the set with consecutive points.
Now in a decisive fifth set, the Golden Suns and Muleriders were locked in an epic back and forth battle.
Through the switch-over, there were two tie scores, one lead change while neither team held a lead larger than two points. After getting the eighth point of the fifth set to prompt the court switch, the Muleriders scored twice more to take a three-point lead, 10-7.
The Golden Suns would not go away and later tied the score at 12-all, 13-all, 14-all and 15-all to push the fifth set past its intended point total. Tech then tied the score once more at 16-all and then grabbed set and match-point themselves on the next service.
That sparked a trade sequence of both teams staving off set and match-point and then setting themselves up with the same scenario.
The last one had Tech take 19-18 lead on an attack error by SAU. The Muleriders responded with a kill on the other end to tie the score at 19-all. This time, the Golden Suns were able to get the consecutive points needed to put the set and match away as they got kills from
Savannah Meyer and
Kaitlyn Neal.
Meyer and Neal ended up being the leading attackers for Tech as Meyer registered a career-high 20 kills and Neal 14. Meyer was extremely efficient in her attack with just one error on 50 swings.
Henley Hooks also joined Meyer and Neal in double-digit kills with 12.
Pacing the offense was
Gracie Palmer as she notched 47 assists. Palmer would also register a double-double as she had 20 digs. Three other Golden Suns would hit double-figures in digs with
Jamie Myrick having 17 and Hooks and Neal each with 12 to give them double-doubles.
At the net, the Golden Suns totaled seven blocks.
Lauren Grier paced the team in that category with three (one solo, two assisted).
The Golden Suns will now prepare for a road match at Henderson State on Tuesday, October 31. First-serve in Arkadelphia is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
