SHAWNEE – Emily Boyer recorded her 3,000^th career assist and Oklahoma Baptist volleyball remained undefeated in Great American Conference action with a 3-1 victory over Arkansas Tech on Friday, Oct. 2 at the Noble Complex.

The Bison (15-4, 7-0 GAC) raced out to a two-set lead over Golden Suns (10-9, 4-3) before finishing things off in four sets to guarantee OBU of its 18th winning season under head coach Anna Howle.

The Bison controlled the first set for a 25-18 victory. Arkansas Tech gave the Bison an early advantage by opening the match with a serve out of bounds. The point sparked a four-point run shortly thereafter, capped off with an ace by Allie Gehrke. The point gave the Bison a 9-4 lead and the Golden Suns struggled to cut the deficit for the remainder of the match. Emily Boyer assisted the final kill by Melody Donegan to give the Bison a 1-0 advantage on the match.

The second set opened with a kill by Addison Dale to give Oklahoma Baptist the first point. Arkansas Tech immediately responded with three straight points to give the Golden Suns a 6-3 lead. Taya McReynolds would lay down a kill on the next rally to spark a 4-0 OBU run to give the Bison a 7-6 advantage. With the score tied late in the set, Madison Crum and Savannah Meyer notched back-to-back kills to spark a 3-0 Arkansas Tech run which resulted in the Golden Suns gaining a 23-20 lead.

With the second set hanging in the balance, Oklahoma Baptist scored five straight points to close the set. The run was highlighted by two crucial back-to-back aces served by Elle Parisi. Parisi then assisted the final kill by Donegan for a 25-23 victory and two-set advantage for the Bison.

a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; } Arkansas Tech claimed the third set, 25-20, to cut the match deficit to 2-1. With the score tied at 10-10, the Golden Suns scored six of the next seven points for a 16-11 lead and never looked back. During the set, Boyer became the second player in Oklahoma Baptist history to record 3,000 assists.

Mackenzie Frazee and Rylee Unruh opened the fourth set with a pair of kills and OBU rushed out to a 7-3 lead. Yet Arkansas Tech remained competitive and found an opening late in the game with back-to-back blocks to tie the score at 17-17. However, McReynolds recorded a kill to kick off four unanswered points for Oklahoma Baptist, and Boyer and Frazee teamed up on the match-clinching block to give the Bison their sixth win in a row.

Unruh recorded a match-high 19 kills while Melody Donegan added 16 while hitting a blistering .400. Boyer had 41 assists, Parisi tallied 18 digs, and Frazee contributed eight blocks. The Bison hit .242 on the attack and finished with 12 service aces, including four from Unruh and three each from Parisi and Madi Barnes

NOTES

• Oklahoma Baptist improved to 9-6 all-time against Arkansas Tech. The Bison are now 4-2 at home against the Golden Suns, and have won five of the last six meetings. a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; }
• Rylee Unruh recorded 19 kills, 11 digs and four aces for her 11th kill-dig double-double of the season. She now has 133 aces as a Bison and needs five more to move into second in school history.
• Anna Howle has now recorded a winning record in 18 of her 19 seasons at Oklahoma Baptist. She is 451-189 during her time at the helm of the program.
• OBU's 12 service aces marked the sixth time this season that the Bison have recorded at least 10 aces. 
• Boyer now stands at 3,021 career assists, the most in the Division II era. The program record is held by Sabra Clark, who recorded 4,406 from 2009-12.
• Frazee pushed her career block total to 186 and needs 14 more to get to 200 for her career.

UP NEXT
Oklahoma Baptist looks to remain undefeated in GAC play when it travels to Arkansas for matches against Southern Arkansas (Oct. 8) and Arkansas-Monticello (Oct. 9). The Bison return home the following week with matches against Henderson State (Oct. 15) and Ouachita Baptist (Oct. 16).