SEARCY, Ark. – Harding frustrated Oklahoma Baptist's offense en route to a 3-0 win on Friday at Rhodes Reaves Field House. HU won for the 17th straight time at its home venue while improving to 11-7 overall and 6-0 in the Great American Conference.
For the Bison, the loss snapped a four-match winning streak and moved their record to 10-7 and 4-2 in league play.
Key Leaders
- Senior Jenna West recorded a team-high eight kills and a block.
- Sophomore Abrey Galt dished out eight assists.
- Senior Maci Langford led with 12 digs.
- Harding's defense limited the Bison to a season-low 22 kills and OBU's .028 attack percentage was its lowest since a Sept. 8, 2017 match versus Drury (.016).
First Set
Early on, a
D'Erricka Frierson kill knotted the scoreboard up at four apiece. However, Harding followed that up with a 7-2 stretch. That included three Bison errors and three kills by HU's Jacey Lambert, Chloe Ingersoll and Logan Smith-Morgan. OBU didn't do itself any favors as it erred nine times compared with eight kills. The Bison also hit -0.03 in the stanza and fell 25-18.
Second Set
The Lady Bisons enjoyed a .325 attack mark in the second as they won 25-13. Smith-Morgan paced HU with seven kills and a .583 connect rate while Libby Hinton added four kills. Following a kill by
Avery Hellmuth, which moved the score to 11-8 HU, the hosts scored seven of the next eight to seize command. Four of those HU points came via Bison attack error before an ace by Grecia Soriano bumped the tally to 18-9 Harding.
Third Set
OBU had a 4-3 and 5-3 lead courtesy of kills by West and
Jh'Kyah Head, respectively, before the hosts erupted with a 12-2 run. Harding started to come back and took the lead at 8-7 after a green and gold error. Later, HU was benefitted by a ball-handling miscue which moved its lead to 15-7. The Bison coaching staff used a timeout to try and slow down the stretch, but it was to no avail as HU scored five in a row after a timeout was called at 10-7. In the third, Skyler McKinnon had three kills while Ingersoll added four.
On The Horizon
Oklahoma Baptist will play Arkansas Tech (1-14, 1-5 GAC) on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Russellville.
