SFA Gets Back on Winning Track, Downs HBU 3-1
10/10/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Stephen F. Austin 3, Houston Baptist 1 (25-20, 22-25, 26-24, 28-26)
Record: SFA (13-9, 5-1 Southland), HBU (9-11, 2-4 Southland)
Up Next: at Northwestern State (3-17, 1-6 Southland) • Tuesday, Oct. 13 • 7:00 p.m.
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Exploiting a struggling service game by Houston Baptist was one of the strategies the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team employed in order to get back in the win column in Shelton Gym on Saturday afternoon.
Of the 96 total points piled up by the Ladyjacks, 20 of them – or 20.8-percent – found their way to SFA’s portion of the scoreboard by way of service errors by the Huskies and the Ladyjacks put down a feisty HBU squad for good with a pair of two-point wins in the third and fourth frames to claim a 3-1 triumph over their Southland Conference foes.
Leading the way on offense for SFA, who completed its final league match in Shelton Gym in the month of October, was the senior tandem of Tori Bates and Jacque Allen. Swinging at a clip of .297, Bates floored a team-best kills while Jacque Allen added 10 winners of her own.
Both individuals also starred in important defensive roles for SFA with Allen notching a solo block and four block assists while Bates posted one solo stuff and another three block assists to the Ladyjacks’ 11-block performance as a team.
In order to secure the important SLC victory, the Ladyjacks were forced to overcome a pair of 15-kill showings by HBU’s Bailey Banks and Blair Gillard. That duo hit .343 and .393 respectively which allowed the Huskies to win the hitting percentage battle .233 to .187.
“I don’t think our focus was where we needed it to be this afternoon, but we were able to survive and earn the win,” said SFA’s 28th-year head coach Debbie Humphreys. “In that last set, we were sitting there at 24-all and had an opportunity to do what we couldn’t do on Thursday night and close the match.”
Back-and-forth was the style of play early in the opening frame before SFA finally strung some points together to open up a lead of a more substantial variety. Following four ties, Gillard put HBU on top 9-8 with a hard smash from the left side of the net, but three straight errors by the Huskies followed with a pair of soft-touch terminations from Bates accounted for five straight points as part of a larger 7-1 surge the hosts took off on to grab a 15-10 edge.
On three occasions, the Ladyjacks’ edge bulged to as many as six points, and Abby McIntyre finally finished off HBU in the opening frame with a powerful kill off one of freshman McKenzie Brewer’s 46 assists.
In the 25-20, offense-oriented set-one victory, SFA hit .407 as a team while the Huskies posted a respectable figure of .303. Both of those aforementioned numbers were the highest single-set attack percentage of the match for each squad.
A nosedive on offense by SFA in the second set gave Houston Baptist the opening it was looking for to force a match that would extend beyond three sets. It was exceedingly difficult for the Ladyjacks to get anything going as the team wound up finishing with a negative hitting percentage in the frame.
That erratic offense, not to mention scoring sprees by the Huskies of 7-0 and 7-1 proved to be SFA’s downfall in a 25-22 setback in the frame. Even though SFA never trailed in terms of sets won in the match, by no means did that mean a comeback was unnecessary by the home squad.
Possessing what appeared to be a comfortable 23-17 lead in the third set, the Ladyjacks didn’t count on a late surge which made things a little too interesting. Roaring back on the strength of a 6-0 surge, the Huskies knotted things at 23-all, but after the squads swapped points Walker punched down an authoritative termination and the Huskies’ final attack of the frame sailed out of bounds to give the frame to SFA by a 26-24 score.
The drama was scarcely wrung out of Shelton Gym, though, as SFA was required to mount a late-stage rally to get things done in four sets. On the non-advantageous end of a 23-20 score in the fourth frame, SFA pumped up its home faithful with a 4-1 surge with kills from Walker, Bates and OJ Olson.
With things tied at 24-all, Houston Baptist called a timeout in an attempt to regroup, but four of the next six points went to the Ladyjacks to give the home team the triumph. Of the last four points scored by SFA, all but one of them came by way of something else than an HBU error.
Four SFA student-athletes entered double-digit dig territory with Olson leading the way by scooping up a match-best 20. Brewer gathered up her second double-double in at many matches by diving down for 11 digs.
Maintaining its grip on second-place in the 13-team Southland Conference, SFA won’t show its collective face in Shelton Gym for a match until late in October. With their brief home stand in the books, the Ladyjacks hit the road for a weeklong journey to – and through – Louisiana. A three-match Southland Conference week will begin with a Tuesday night (Oct. 13) showdown at Northwestern State at 7 p.m.
-SFA-
