GOODWELL, Okla. – With several big matches coming up, Wayland Baptist remained in second place in the Sooner Athletic Conference standings with a sweep of Oklahoma-Panhandle State on Tuesday, 25-15, 25-23, 25-19.
"This keeps us in second place," Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi said of his Pioneers (8-8, 4-1 SAC), who trail only 24
th-ranked Oklahoma City (10-1, 4-0) in the league standings.
Against OPSU (6-6, 3-2), a team that had won five of its last six outings, the Pioneers took care of business from the start, racing to a 13-5 lead in the opening set.
"We jumped out to sizeable lead in first set and it ended up a blowout," Giacomazzi said. "We hit .308 that first set and got five blocks. That set a tempo at the very beginning that they couldn't hit past us."
The Aggies turned the tables in set two, however, as the home team scored the first nine points of the second set.
"We're a young team, and we were still celebrating (what we did in the first set)," Giacomazzi said. "We started out with several reception errors and just had some bad luck, but we started grinding away. Kellie (Kozak) and Tatijana (Markic) got us back in the game with kills, plus we had several big digs. We just kept plugging along."
Wayland tied it for the first time at 20 then took its first lead, 22-21, with back-to-back kills by Kozak and
Amber Daniel. A final kill by
Sadie Hall gave the Pioneers the improbably come-from-behind victory.
The Pioneers also had to fight from behind in the third, but not from as far back. WBU's largest deficit was three, and the visitors scored nine of the last 11 points – including the final five straight thanks to kills by Kozak and Daniel and three errors by the Aggies – to end it.
Markic finished with 13 kills and hit .250, while Kozak (.316) and Daniel had seven smashes apiece. Wayland hit .206 as a team, compared to OPSU's .061.
Daniel's 14 digs paced the Pioneers, while Kozak finished with two solo blocks, two block-assists and two aces.
Renzelle Horner had 16 assists and
Lucie Mahelova 11.
The match ended a five-game road swing for Wayland, which returns home to host John Brown (9-3, 3-1) at 6 p.m. Saturday. After being swept by OCU in their SAC opener, the Golden Eagles have won three straight over Southwestern Christian and Texas Wesleyan in three and in five over a tough SAGU squad. All four of those matches have been at JBU's home in Siloam Springs, Ark.
"John Brown is a very good team…one of the top three in the conference right now," Giacomazzi said, adding that senior defensive specialist
Jordan Breding saw action in only her third match of the season against OPSU. "We'll rest her until Saturday and hopefully get to play her more then. We need her leadership and her passion."
