Magnolia, Ark. - Mulerider Volleyball looks to defend their perfect 2-0 home record this week in matchups against Oklahoma Baptist and Southern Nazarene. The Riders will play in the W.T. Watson Athletic center against OBU on Thursday, October 6 and SNU on Friday, October 7.

Southern Arkansas is coming off two tough losses in Oklahoma, with the most recent being a a 3-0 loss in Weatherford, Oklahoma to Southwestern Oklahoma. Throughout last week's play Landry Rogers recorded 37 kills while Kayte Delong recorded 19 and Anna Crittenden had 21. Morgan Schuster notched another 41 assists and Rogers had 23 digs between the two games.

Oklahoma Baptist

Southern Arkansas looks to disturb Oklahoma Baptist's six game winning streak at home on Thursday night. OBU is 6-1 in conference play with their only loss being handed to them by East Central in their first conference matchup of the season. Five of those six wins have been served on OBU's home court and their one loss has occurred on the road. Four of their conference wins as well as four of their non-conference wins have been decided in straight sets.

The Bison's last win came on September 30^th versus Ouachita (25-19, 26-24, 25-16). D'Erricka Frierson led their offense with 12 kills followed by Taneyah Brown with 9 and Jill Leslie with 8. On the defensive side of play, Maci Langford notched 27 digs while Jenna west had 16 and Rylee Martin had 14.

Oklahoma Baptist leads the conference in digs, averaging 18.61 per set. The team ranks second in assists (12.46 avg/set), kills (13.59 avg/set) and blocks (2.23 avg/set). Jill Leslie ranks second in the conference with a .334 hitting percentage. Maci Langford also finds herself in second place on the leaderboard with her average 5.40 digs per set.

Southern Arkansas has never beat OBU dating back to their integration into the Great American Conference in 2015. Between the six matchups, the teams have had to play five sets twice, but in their latest matchup, the Bison won in straight sets.

Southern Nazarene

Southern Nazarene holds the third best hitting percentage in the conference with a .215. The team ranks fourth with their average 11.70 assists per set, 12.58 kills, and 2.18 blocks. Southern Nazarene's Whitney Bowie has the fourth best hitting percentage in the GAC (3.15) as well as the eighth best points average (3.35/set). She also resides on the leaderboard with her 0.91 average blocks per set while teammate Bailey Grimes stands in fifth place (0.97 avg/set). Sunny Batschelett ranks sixth in kills (3.04 avg/set) and sixth in points (3.49 avg/set). Kaley Brubaker is averaging 10.47 assists per set to rank second in the GAC.

Southern Nazarene has won eight of the nine contests with Southern Arkansas. The only matchup SNU has lost was the first game between the teams dating back to 2012 in Magnolia.

SNU is posting a 4-3 conference record, with their previous two games coming as wins over Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist.

SNU is slated to play the University of Arkansas at Monticello on Thursday.

First serve is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday and 4:00 p.m. on Friday. Live coverage links will be available at www.MuleriderAthletics.com.

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