Jim Giacomazzi might have preferred another cakewalk like Wayland enjoyed the night before, but Wayland Baptist volleyball coach walked away impressed with how his Pioneers came back to pull out a five-set Sooner Athletic Conference win over Langston University on Saturday afternoon in Hutcherson Center.
"I was excited to see their passion and enthusiasm beginning in the second half of the fourth set. That was encouraging," Giacomazzi said after the Pioneers – led by another strong hitting performance from
Kellie Kozak and solid defense from senior
Jordan Breding – secured a 25-21, 21-25, 13-25, 25-15, 15-9 victory over the Lions.
"We needed that."
Against a team Wayland beat in four on the road Sept. 13, the Pioneers (12-14, 7-7 SAC) knew right away the Lions (5-19, 2-11) came to play. In an unhappy mood after blowing a 2-0 lead and losing in five the previous night to Oklahoma-Panhandle State, Langston led by as many as four in the first set. Wayland was clinging to a 20-19 lead before scoring five of the next six points to end it.
The second set also was back-and-forth, but it was Langston which closed strong this time and the Lions prevailed by the same score, 25-21.
The third set was one of runs. Langston led 10-5 but Wayland scored five in a row to tie it. The Lions then went on a 12-1 run to take command and wound up with the lopsided 25-13 victory to take a 2-1 lead.
The Pioneers were able to score off tipping early in the match, but the Lions adjusted after the first set.
"We were trying to tip our way to victory, and you can't do that. It will keep them off balance, but it's like a pitcher in baseball throwing change-up after change-up after change-up. Sooner or later the batter is going to adjust. Every time we gave them a free ball they would knock it down our throats."
After hitting -.054 in the third, with five kills and seven errors, the Pioneers began playing cleaner volleyball. As a result Wayland never trailed in the fourth or fifth sets.
"Our hitting was terrible after three sets, but we minimized our errors and did well in the fourth and fifth," Giacomazzi said. "In most sports the team that makes the least amount of errors wins, and that's exactly what happened. It really did come down to that."
In the fourth the Pioneers raced to an 8-2 lead and never looked back.
"We weren't relying on them to make mistakes. We were going out and putting the ball down," Giacomazzi said. "We had 17 kills in the fourth, which was about a third of our total. That was a big plus."
In the fifth Wayland scored the first five points on a couple of kills by Kozak, a pair of Langston errors and an ace by
Brenna Daniel. The Lions came back after a timeout and scored five of the next six points to pull to within one, but that's as close as they got.
Wayland put up three points in a row then iced it with two kills and an ace by
Lucie Mahelova and single kills by Kozak,
Charm Henderson and
Sadie Hall. The match ended on a ball-handling error.
"We only had one hitting error in the fifth off of 20 tries. We scored a couple points off service aces and a couple of blocks, so that was good," Giacomazzi said.
After missing her career kills high by one in Friday's three-set romp over Central Christian, Kozak wound up getting it with 19 smashes against Langston, hitting .319 in the process. Markic finished with 13 kills while Mahelova put down 11.
"We were focused on getting Kellie the ball as much as we could, which meant we had to have better transition passing to get the ball to Renzelle so she could get a good quality set to Kellie," Giacomazzi said.
Renzelle Horner recorded a career-high 50 assists, bettering her previous mark of 49 which she achieved twice. The redshirt-freshman also matched her season-high with five of Wayland's nine aces.
Breding, meanwhile, dug 31 balls, her second-best effort behind the 39 she got while a sophomore. Daniel added 19 digs, Horner 13 and Mahelova and
Ariel Marquez 10 each.
Wayland had 13 block-assists, led by Kozak's four.
Wayland improved to 3-1 in five-set matches this season; Langston fell to 2-4 in five-setters.
"It was a hard-fought match," Giacomazzi said. "(Langston) is going to be good next year. They have a lot of sophomores and a good coach (Christian Lowe) who knows her stuff."
Next for the Pioneers is a trip to Siloam Springs for a match Friday against John Brown (19-6, 10-3), which fell out of a second-place tie with Texas Wesleyan with a three-set loss to the Rams on Friday. JBU, which faced SAGU on Saturday night, defeat WBU in Plainview earlier this season, 25-15, 25-18, 26-24.
Wayland's next home match is in 10 days against Oklahoma-Panhandle State on Oct. 29.
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