BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – An early-morning, five-set battle went the way of No. 9 Oklahoma Baptist against Davenport on Saturday at the Ferris State University Invitational.
After claiming the first two sets rather handily, the Bison dropped sets three and four before edging the Panthers, 17-15, in the final fifth frame.
In the opening set, Oklahoma Baptist got off to a great start en route to a 25-20 win. The Bison offense recorded four kills and three aces, the last two courtesy of senior
Taryn Weber, and led 8-4. That lead ballooned to nine, 18-9, after an
Avery Hellmuth kill. By the end of the set, four different players had tallied multiple kills while the Bison defense had four players record multiple digs.
OBU's defense really made things difficult in the second against the Panthers. Leading 15-13, the Bison reeled off a 10-1 run which included seven attack errors by Davenport. By the end of the stanza, the Panthers connected on -.118 of their attempts.
That poor offensive showing didn't continue, though. After the second set, Davenport got in gear to tie the match. Over the third and fourth stanzas, the Panthers hit .357 while the Bison cooled off, connecting on .163 of their attempts.
Down 2-0, and trailing 15-11 in the third, Hayley Kreiger started a 5-0 run to give her team just its sixth lead of the match. OBU went back ahead by two, 18-16, after kills from
Malia Leatherland and Hellmuth but could not expand on that. Following those two OBU points, the Panthers put together a 9-1 run to move the match score to 2-1.
In the fourth with the score tied at 7-all, Riley Groves recorded a kill and that was followed by a block assist from Kreiger and Megan Herr. Davenport never lost the lead after that and won 25-20. Kreiger and Herr combined for seven kills in the set.
With the match all knotted up, the fifth and final set turned out to be a good one. Trailing 11-8 after a Groves ace, the Bison came back to tie things up at 14-14 after a block from
Audrey Poupard and
Jenna West. Davenport got the next point on a bad set from OBU, and had match point, however, the Bison held defeat off.
A kill by
Taneyah Brown was followed by two attack errors from the Panthers, giving OBU a 17-15 victory.
