PLAINVIEW, Texas – With the MACU Volleyball team needing a win in its regular season finale inside the Hutcherson Center on Saturday afternoon, the Evangels put together one of their best road performances of the season as MACU swept the Pioneers in three hard-fought sets.
With the win, MACU locked up the No. 4 seed in the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament next week, marking the third consecutive year the Evangels will host a quarterfinal match.
SCORE
- Mid-America Christian 3, Wayland Baptist 0 (25-23, 25-22, 27-25)
- Mid-America Christian (19-10, 15-7 SAC)
- Wayland Baptist (15-11, 14-8 SAC)
TOP PERFORMERS
MATCH SUMMARY
- Set One
- After giving up four of the first five points, Mid-America Christian found a groove following a Casady McKinney setter dump side-out kill as the Evangels rattled off a 6-1 run capped off on an Alica Obusekova block to make it 7-5 MACU.
- Wayland Baptist battled back to tie it on a pair of occasions heading into the midway point, the last coming at 13-all, but MACU took back the advantage on a pair of kills from Sarah Jones-Stafford and Obusekova to go with a Selma Sutaj attack error to make it 16-13.
- The Pioneers once again fought back to tie it at 20-all and even when MACU was able to get it to set point, WBU's Klaudia Brzeczkowska registered a kill to close it to a one-point set before Obusekova ended a long rally by powering a kill off the WBU block to wrap-up the 25-23 win.
- Set Two
- Despite giving up the first point, MACU quickly stemmed the following a Carlee Heidebrecht attack error as the Evangels rattled off a 6-1 run capped off on another McKinney setter kill to make it 6-2.
- After calling a timeout following the 10th rally, Wayland Baptist got back on-track in a big way, scoring four-unanswered to briefly tie it up during a 7-2 surge that allowed the Pioneers to recapture a 10-9 edge on Heidebrect's termination.
- The two teams went blow-for-blow through the next 13 rallies as neither team was able to grab larger than a one-point lead before the Evangels seized control back following a 4-1 surge by taking advantage of a pair of Pioneer makes as well as a kill apiece from Annabeth Fehrle and Lena Stockhammer to set the score to 20-17.
- Wayland Baptist managed to briefly claw it back to a one-point game at 20-19, but MACU managed to hold off the WBU comeback as a Pioneers service error abruptly ended the set at 25-22.
- Set Three
- Mid-America Christian looked like it was going to run away with the third set when the Evangels opened by scoring eight of the first nine as four Pioneers errors helped MACU secure a healthy seven-point advantage, forcing WBU to call its two timeouts very early on.
- Wayland Baptist slowly chiseled away at the MACU advantage over the 22 rallies to close it to a one-point contest at 16-15. However, the Evangels had an answer of its own by scoring four-straight as a Miriam Nardi kill and block put the Pioneers on the brink at 20-15.
- The Pioneers stormed back with vengeance late to take one-point and then a trade of side-out scoring for both teams brought it to set point in-favor of WBU at 24-23.
- Back-to-back kills by Stockhammer and Nardi quickly spun it to match point in MACU's favor, but a MACU attack error allowed the Pioneers to hang around a little longer at 25-all.
- Nardi once again brought match point to MACU's side on a kill on the left side before Sydney Martin recorded a match-point service ace to sign, seal and deliver the exciting 27-25 victory over Wayland Baptist.
MATCH NOTES
- Mid-America Christian was very solid in the attack against a strong Wayland Baptist defense, scoring 47 kills on a .210 hitting percentage while the Pioneers managed to place 41 kills down on a .161 attack rate.
- Lena Stockhammer led a balanced MACU attack with 13 kills on a .265 attack percentage while Alica Obusekova came away with 11 terminations on a .242 hitting clip.
- Junior setter Casady McKinney had one of her best three-set matches of the season as she not only tied fellow freshman setter Madison Lee with 18 assists and nine digs as both setters just narrowly missed a double-double, but McKinney also put down a season-high five kills on a blister .556 hitting percentage.
- Ryley Bowden led MACU's back row efforts with 21 digs, averaging 7.0 shovels per set while Obusekova, Sarah Jones-Stafford and Miriam Nardi were big in the block with two rejections apiece.
- By getting the win, MACU split the season series with Wayland Baptist after the Pioneers came away with a 3-2 win over the Evangels inside the Gaulke Activity Center on Oct. 4. However, the Evangels are just the second team in the conference to sweep the Pioneers on their home court as MACU is one of just three SAC teams to win inside the Hutcherson Center and undefeated SAC champ Nelson being the only other team in the conference to come away from the venue with a sweep.
- The victory allowed MACU to finish in a tie for third in the SAC standings with John Brown with both teams holding a 15-7 league record, however, JBU holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over MACU for the No. 3 spot after winning both meetings between the two squads.
UP NEXT
- After facing off just eight days ago, Mid-America Christian will face Oklahoma City once again inside the Gaulke Activity Center in the SAC Quarterfinal on Tuesday night as the opening serve is set to take place at 8 p.m.
