MAGNOLIA, Arkansas – The Ouachita volleyball team went on the road Tuesday night and earned a 3-1 win over Southern Arkansas in the first Great American Conference match of the season.
With the win, the Tigers improve to 8-1 overall and have now won five straight matches heading into this weekend's road trip to Warrensburg to compete in the Central Missouri Comfort Inn Invitational.
The 8-1 record marks the best start for the Tigers since the 2018 squad won nine straight to open the season.
Final scores of Tuesday's win over SAU were 28-26, 17-25, 25-13, and 25-15.
Neither team led by more than three in the back-and-forth first set that featured 10 lead changes and 14 tied scores. The Tigers won three rallies in a row at the end of the frame, including kills from
Emily Adams and
Kailey Thedford.
The Tigers hit .289 as a team in the second set to go up 2-0 in the match. After tallying seven kills in the first set, Thedford led the team again with five kills in the second.
SAU took advantage of nine Tiger errors in the third set to avoid being swept and force a fourth set, which was close for most of the frame until the Tigers finished off the Muleriders with a 7-0 run to close out the match.
Thedford paced the Tiger offense with 17 kills. Adams and
Riley Braziel each added 10. Braziel added 17 digs for her third double-double of the season.
Kylie Kisgen matched her career-high with 31 digs.
Courtney Hanson matched her career-high in digs with 22 and also added a match-high 36 assists. Those 22 digs put Hanson above the 1,000 mark for her career.
Savannah Whitaker also reached double-digits in digs with 11.
