Box Score The 12
th-ranked Oklahoma Baptist Lady Bison used impressive serving, among other things, to sweep Wayland Baptist in Sooner Athletic Conference play Friday night at Hutcherson Center, 25-21, 25-20, 25-21.
With their top-spin and jumping float serves, Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi called OBU “one of the better serving teams in the conference. We spent a lot of time on that this week, so it's disappointing we didn't handle it any better.”
OBU came away with 10 aces, compared to four for the Pioneers. Wayland also committed 10 serve receive errors.
Giacomazzi also pointed to several other disappointing statistics.
“Our passing percentage (45 percent) was a little low, and that hurt us,” he said. He also pointed to Wayland's two total blocks, and while that was one more than OBU ended up with, Giacomazzi said, “That's not good enough.”
It was the 12
th straight win for the Lady Bison (21-3, 3-0), while Wayland dropped to 8-11 and 3-2.
Except for early in the first and third sets – briefly both instances – Wayland never led against the Lady Bison, who jumped out to a 5-0 lead before the Pioneers rallied. WBU trailed 22-11 when
Grecia Rivera served for seven straight points, cutting the lead to 22-18. But OBU regrouped and managed to close out the set.
“We didn't make adjustments defensively when they started tipping,” Giacomazzi said. “We were going left and should have been staying right.”
In the third set, Wayland was within three at 17-14 when the Lady Bison rolled off seven of the next nine points for a 24-16 advantage. The Pioneers fought off match point four times before finally succumbing.
“There are some things we need to change,” Giacomazzi said.
Wayland got a team-high 12 kills from reigning SAC Hitter and Player of the Week
Shahala Hawkins, while
Tania Gomez added nine. The Pioneers hit .208 as a team compared to OBU's .261.
Natasha Giacomazzi tallied 31 assists and 12 digs. Rivera got 14 digs and
Chelsey Driskill recorded a pair of aces.
“What's encouraging is, just like when we played the No. 1 team in the country (UT-Brownsville), we hung with them,” Coach Giacomazzi said. “If we can eliminate mistakes… We gave them 32 points; we can't give them 32 points.”
The Pioneers don't get much rest before hosting another SAC opponent, St. Gregory's, at 11 a.m. Saturday. St. Greg's (10-8, 0-5) fell in three to Lubbock Christian on Friday night. Wayland then turns around to face Wiley College at 5:30 p.m. Saturday to cap a busy weekend.
