RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The Arkansas Tech volleyball team lost in three sets at home on Saturday afternoon against Oklahoma Baptist.
Despite the overall sweep, the Golden Suns played the Bison extremely close through the first two sets. In the opening set, Tech overcame an early five-point deficit and used a 6-0 run to grab their first lead of the set. From there, the first set was tightly-contested with the largest lead on either side being just two points.
That was the margin in favor of the Golden Suns with the score 22-20. Oklahoma Baptist then had a late 3-0 surge to take a one-point lead, 23-22. A kill by Tech's
Henley Hooks knotted the game at 23-all, but a pair of ATU attack errors followed to help the Bison close the first set.
Set two saw the Golden Suns jump out to an early lead and maintain an advantage through the midway point of the set. With Tech leading 14-11, Oklahoma Baptist would score six of the next seven points in the set to take a 17-15 lead. The Bison later pushed their advantage out to 22-17 before the Golden Suns staged a late rally to knot the score at 22-all with five-straight points.
The Bison weathered that push and scored the next three points to escape with a set two win.
Oklahoma Baptist was able to us the momentum from that set two win in set three as they took early control and did not look back. Eventually, the Bison swelled their lead out to double-digits and were able to maintain that size of an advantage to the end with a 25-13 score in the final set.
The Golden Suns will now take a brief step out of GAC action and will travel to Fort Smith this coming Tuesday to take on Arkansas-Fort Smith. First-serve is scheduled for 6 p.m.
