ADA, Okla. – The Lady Mulerider Volleyball team suffered a hard-fought five-set match to East Central (25-16, 25-27, 17-25, 25-16, 13-25) on Saturday behind Bass' second triple-double performance and O'Banion's season-high 19 kills.
OF NOTE
- Alexa Bass recorded her second triple-double of the season (14 kills, 38 assists, 11 digs) after being the first Lady Mulerider since 2011 to do it inside the W.T. Watson Center last week.
- Bass' 14 kills and five service aces were new season-highs.
- Alli O'Banion was four blocks shy of the 300-mark in total career blocks going into today's match and eclipsed that mark today with five total blocks in five sets played.
- With 301 career blocks, O'Banion is now just the third Lady Mulerider to reach 300 or more career blocks in the Rally Scoring Era.
- O'Banion's 19 kills in the match set a new season-high and was just one shy of her current career-high 20 kills.
- Overall, SAU out-hit their opponent with 67 total team kills and a .202 attack clip in comparison to ECU's 59 total kills at a .197 attack clip.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- After being tied at 7-all in the first set, Southern Arkansas made a comeback with a 7-0 run that gave them a 14-7 advantage. ECU would nearly cut their deficit in half, engineering a 13-16 score before SAU extended that gap with five consecutive points to make it 21—13, SAU.
- Three kills (Bass 2, Cagle 1) and a service ace delivered by Savannah Pillow established the SAU victory at 25-16.
- In the second set, SAU equipped another early advantage with a 17-9 lead. ECU bolstered a 14-3 run shortly after that allowed them to take a three point lead, 23-20. SAU reclaimed the lead, 24-23, but four Lady Tiger kills gave ECU the ultimate victory, 27-25.
- Tied at one set apiece, ECU would take set three by a final decision of 25-17 and SAU answered with a 25-16 final decision in the fourth set to tie the match at 2-all and force a fifth set aided by a team 20 kills at an attack clip of .462.
- In the final set, the Lady Muleriders jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and later extended that out to a 9-6 score. ECU would tie the game with a kill followed by a pair of SAU attack errors to make it 9-all. Three additional tie-scores later saw ECU take the final lead at 12-all with a 3-1 run to claim the match win over SAU, 3-2.
UP NEXT
- The Lady Muleriders return home for a GAC matchup against Monticello on Thursday, October 26 with a 6 p.m. start inside the W.T. Watson Center.