ENID, Okla. – The lone regular season meeting between the Arkansas Tech and Southwestern Oklahoma volleyball teams was a closely-contested five-set thriller and proved to be a foreshadowing of what was to come at the Great American Conference Tournament.
Tech was able to come away with the win in the regular season, but SWOSU countered with a hard-fought 3-1 victory in the opening round of the GAC Tournament on Wednesday night. The loss ends the year for the Golden Suns and caps year two under head coach
Hannah Wuest.
In each of her first two seasons at Tech, Wuest has guided the Golden Suns to the GAC Tournament with double-digit conference wins and posted consecutive winning seasons overall after the program hit a stretch of three-straight years with an overall record under .500.
The match with SWOSU on Wednesday saw both teams record double-digit kills in all four sets while being separated by .001 on attack percentage as the Bulldogs edged out the Golden Suns with a .165 mark. The teams were also neck-and-neck in digs, assists, kills and points.
After the Bulldogs won the first set, 25-21, the Golden Suns won set two and had the largest margin of victory across any set in the match, beating SWOSU by eight, 25-17. The third set was a back-and-forth epic that saw the Bulldogs outlast Tech, 29-27.
The Bulldogs were able to carry that momentum into the fourth set and got out to their best start in any set, racing out to an early 3-0 lead. SWOSU had previously been down 3-0 in set one, 5-0 in set two and 4-0 in set three.
The Golden Suns fought back and tied the set at 9-all and then took a three-point lead themselves, 12-9. SWOSU regained control by scoring six of the next seven points to go up 16-13. After a push by the Golden Suns to get within a point, the Bulldogs rattled off three-straight to go up 19-15.
Tech had one more push in them as they knotted the set at 20-all after scoring five of the next six points. SWOSU broke the tie and scored a second point afterwards to gain a foothold late. After a kill by the Golden Suns, the Bulldogs scored twice more in succession to pull to match-point.
Tech was able to stave off the first match-point, but the Bulldogs picked up the win on the next service.
Individually, the Golden Suns were led on offense by a pair of seniors and all-conference performers in
Henley Hooks and
Savannah Meyer. Hooks would have 16 kills to finish her four-year career with 1,135. Meyer would add 14 to close out her career with 1,143. Meyer also registered a double-double with 15 digs.
Three other Golden Suns would have double-digit digs in the match with
Samantha Wojtowicz leading with 18.
Kenzie Garrett was next with 17 while
Karis Brinlee rounded out double-digit digs with 14. Garrett also had a double-double with her team-high 29 assists. The senior finished the year with 790 assists and 1,563 for her career.
