Box Score Two days after taking on one of the top volleyball teams China has to offer, the No. 22 Wayland Baptist Pioneers made short work – mostly – of St. Gregory's University on Friday night, winning a Sooner Athletic Conference matchup in Hutcherson Center, 25-13, 25-23, 25-20.
"We just wanted to start getting that momentum for (Saturday vs. John Brown), for Oklahoma City, for Oklahoma Baptist, and for the rest of our conference," Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi said afterwards.
The victory was the seventh in a row for Wayland (16-9 overall, 9-2 SAC), since the exhibition loss to Zhejiang, China, did not count against the Pioneers. St. Gregory's, meanwhile, fell to 6-19 and 2-10, although Giacomazzi was impressed with the Cavaliers' improvement under first-year coach Hayley Summers.
"They did a good job, and she's done a good job preparing them," the WBU coach said. "You look over there and they're having fun, whereas before they were miserable."
The Cavaliers probably didn't have too much fun in the first set as Wayland rolled to an easy victory. The Pioneers led it 10-6 before running off eight straight points – many of them thanks to attack errors by St. Greg's – to take complete control and ultimately prevail, 25-13.
The second and third sets were much closer, however.
St. Greg's held as much as a two-point lead in the second until Wayland again found its groove and went up 14-10 on back-to-back kills by
Shahala Hawkins and
Rebekah Jones. The Cavaliers, however, fought back to tie it at 16, and it remained tied at 23 when a kill by
Chelsey Driskill and an attack error by SGU gave Wayland the two-point victory.
In the third, SGU held as much as three-point lead at 9-6, and Wayland didn't go ahead until a kill by
Morgan Seaton followed by an ace by
Emily Welch made it 16-15. That kicked off a 6-0 run for the Pioneers, though St. Greg's battled back once more to close to within 23-20. Wayland was able to seal the victory with a kill by
Katie Inman.
Giacomazzi praised both Inman and Jones for the progress they're making on the outside of Wayland's attack.
"Katie is coming along. She needs to keep moving forward and get some fire under her," Giacomazzi said.
Inman ended with five kills and hit .375, while Jones, who had some of her best swings of the season, added three kills while hitting .250.
Hawkins' 19 kills and .395 hitting percentage paced the Pioneers, followed by Seaton with six and .278. Driskill matched Inman's five kills.
Wayland came up with 53 digs, led by Welch's 13 and
Cat Wiechmann's 10. Both Seaton and Hawkins had one solo and three block assists apiece as the
Pioneers ended with seven compared to just one for SGU.
Ashlyn Westerman provided 39 assists.
Wayland returns to the floor at 11 a.m. Saturday to take on John Brown (17-8, 7-4), which upset the Pioneers when they went to Arkansas a month ago, 25-16, 25-12, 17-25, 26-24.
"They want to be a spoiler, and they can be," Giacomazzi said of the Golden Eagles. "They beat us once already, so they're not afraid of us, not intimidated by us."
As the regular-season winds down, the coach said the Pioneers are tweaking their game.
"We added a bunch of free ball plays, and just trying to fine tune some things and provide different looks. Tonight, John Brown was up in the stands watching us and taking notes."
Giacomazzi asked for fan support on Saturday.
"We'll take every fan we can get," he said. "Hopefully all the hard work and repetitions pay off and we rise to the occasion."
