SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Arkansas Tech volleyball team wrapped up their opening weekend of action on Saturday with a pair of matches against Illinois-Springfield and McKendree. Tech would come out on the down side of both matches, losing to UIS 3-0 and McKendree 3-1.
"We played some great competition this weekend; all four teams were very strong," noted head coach
Kera Coleman. "I think we walk away knowing what we've got to work on this week at practice and where we're lacking. We're going to show up and get after it and I know the team won't settle for anything less. This was a good wake up call for all of us and we know we're going to respond with growth and execution."
In their first match of the day, Tech took on host-school Illinois-Springfield and after a slow offensive start in the first set, the Golden Suns (0-4) got the feet under them and played a back-and-forth set two. In that second set, Tech led four times, but weren't able to get a lot of separation from the Prairie Stars (1-2) as the Golden Suns' largest lead was two points.
The same was true for UIS, however, as the largest lead they had during the second set was two points. That unfortunately changed with the set tied at 18-all. UIS then rattled off a 4-0 scoring run on the strength of three kills and one Tech attack error to suddenly lead 22-18.
Tech benefited from a pair of attack errors by the Prairie Stars to snap that run and cut the deficit in half, 22-20. That would be as close as Tech could get in the second set as UIS scored three of the next four points to win the set, 25-21.
True freshman
Savannah Meyer led the team in kills with 10.
Emma Crenshaw was second with seven.
Gracie Palmer paced the attack with 24 assists. Libero
Jamie Myrick led the team in digs with 16.
In the second match of the day, the Golden Suns ran into an unbelievable offensive attack by McKendree in the first set. That set was nearly flawless for the Bearcats (1-2) as they committed no errors on 32 attempts and put away 16 kills.
Set two was closely-contested and up for grabs. Trailing 14-13, it looked as though the Golden Suns were going to be the ones to take hold of the set as they scored five of the next six points to jaunt out to an 18-15 lead. The Golden Suns were also the first two 20 points and held a two-point lead at that moment.
A 3-0 scoring run by McKendree, however, flipped the lead in their favor. Tech was able to tie the score at 21-all on a McKendree service error, but the Bearcats recovered and captured four of the next five points to close out the set, 25-22.
Set three had the Golden Suns down early 7-4, but a furious 5-0 run that was spurred on by three-straight service aces by
Maddi Siedenburg vaulted Tech out in front. McKendree was able to tie the set up at 14-all and again at 15-all before taking an 18-15 lead.
After a service error by McKendree, service went back to Tech and Siedenburg. The Golden Suns, with Siedenburg serving, would score the next seven points to race out to a 23-18 lead. As she did in that earlier run by Tech, Siedenburg had three service aces for Tech in this stretch to give her six for the match, a career-high.
McKendree made it interesting down the stretch and pulled within one before the Golden Suns closed out the set to stave off the sweep.
In the fourth set, an early deficit proved to be too much to overcome as the Bearcats led wire-to-wire to seal the match win.
Kaitlyn Neal led the team in kills against McKendree with nine. One back of that was Siedenburg with eight. Palmer had 15 assists and
Aspen Jankowski added 10. Myrick's 14 digs led the team.
The Golden Suns will now prepare for another weekend of competition away from home as they will travel to Lubbock, Texas to take part in the LCU Chap Classic.
