SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. --- Although their play from one day to the next improved, the Wayland Baptist volleyball team could manage only a split of their Sooner Athletic Conference volleyball matches over the weekend. The Pioneers won a four-set match against Mid-America Christian on Friday evening in Oklahoma City, but fell in a four-set match on Saturday afternoon at John Brown University.
Coach Jim Giacomazzi's squad played JBU close in each of the four sets, losing by scores of 25-21 and 25-23 in the first two and 25-18 in the fourth. The Pioneers took set three 25-15.
"We played better," said Giacomazzi, whose team is now 12-5 on the season and 1-2 in conference play. "Our hitting errors were down. In fact, we had fewer errors on the attack than John Brown."
The Pioneers committed just 15 errors in the match, compared to 28 by the Lady Golden Eagles. However, JBU scored 60 points on the attack, while WBU put down 41 kills.
Kate Trejos was the only Wayland netter to hit the double-digit mark in kills with 19. The senior outside hitter also had a team-high 16 digs.
Junior defensive specialist Jaharys Archilla had 13 digs and setter Natasha Giacomazzi record 12 digs to go with her match-high 34 assists.
Wayland had two more service aces (5) than John Brown and one more block (5-4). Giacomazzi put down two of those aces, and senior middle Tatiana Gonazalez was in on three of the blocks.
Coach Giacomazzi said the difference in the match came down to service errors. "Unfortunately, the area that we did not show improvement in today was on our serve, and most of those errors came in the first two sets. That is what makes this such a disappointing loss. We eliminate some of those early errors and it's a whole different ballgame."
The Pioneers, who lost the opening sets by a total of six points, gave the Lady Golden Eagles seven points on the serve. WBU finished the match with ten service errors.
"We have Oklahoma Baptist coming up next," Giacomazzi added. "Hopefully we can learn something from this match and carry it over to Friday."
OBU, the defending SAC regular season champion, is currently No. 22 in the NAIA with an overall record of 14-9. The Lady Bison are 3-0 in conference play. They arrive at Hutcherson Center on Friday for a 7:00 match. On Saturday, the Pioneers will take on St. Gregory's University in an 11:00 a.m. contest.
