SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The 2023 regular season got underway on Friday for the Arkansas Tech volleyball team with a pair of in-region matches against Texas A&M-International and Missouri Western. Tech would come away from Opening Day with a pair of defeats.
"Obviously not the first day we envisioned, but I think we saw some really good things from the team at times," noted head coach
Kera Coleman. "We are buckled in for the entire season and are excited for the opportunity to bounce back tomorrow."
That bounce back opportunity alluded to by Coleman will see the Golden Suns (0-2) take on host-school Illinois-Springfield at 11 a.m. and McKendree at 3 p.m.
Friday's action saw the Golden Suns force a fourth set in their opener against upstart Texas A&M-International. After dropping the first two sets against the Dustdevils and recording 15 kills as a team against 10 errors, the Golden Suns offense broke out in a major way in set three.
In that set, Tech hammered home an eye-popping 17 kills and committed just two attack errors en route to a 25-19 win. Unfortunately, as hot and efficient as the Golden Suns were in the third set, their attempt to push the match to a decisive fifth set was thwarted by the Dustdevils efficient offensive attack in set four as they registered 13 kills against just one error.
Kaitlyn Neal led the Golden Suns in kills in the match against A&M-International with 11. She also posted a .360 attack percentage as she had just two errors in 25 attempts. One kill off Neal's pace was
Maddi Siedenburg as she collected 10 kills. She would also have just two errors, but posted a higher attack percentage at .400 with 20 attempts.
Gracie Palmer paced the Tech offense with 26 assists. She also added a team-high 11 digs to post a double-double.
In the second match, the Golden Suns ran into a hot Missouri Western team who had won their first two matches of the season and were coming off a five-set win against McKendree just before playing Tech.
The first set of that match saw the Griffons (3-0) jump out to a 14-3 lead. Despite the early deficit, the Golden Suns battled back hard and scored nine of the next 12 points to pull within five of the lead, 17-12. The Griffons then scored five of the next six points to go up 22-13.
Once more resilient, the Golden Suns went on a major run, scoring eight-straight points to climb all the way back to a single point back, 22-21. During that run, the Golden Suns got kills from
Jordan Clouse,
Sierra Orton,
Kaitlyn Neal (2), and
Henley Hooks while also getting a block assist from Orton and Neal and a service ace from
Jamie Myrick.
Missouri Western was able to stop the surge and closed out the set with the next three points.
From there, the Griffons continued the momentum from set one and took sets two and three by scores of 25-12 and 25-15, respectively.
