MESA, Ariz. – Wayland Baptist concluded play in the Ottawa Invitational here Saturday morning by rolling to a 25-23, 25-17, 25-13 victory over Benedictine University at Mesa.
The Pioneers (2-2) wound up with a 2-2 record in the season-opening tournament, having fallen on Thursday to host Ottawa in four before on Friday defeating Montana State-Northern in four and falling to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical in three. ERU is ranked the equivalent of 36
th in the NAIA preseason poll.
"I saw flashes of a pretty good team out there this weekend. That was nice to see," Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi said. "Anytime somebody gets 20 kills that's pretty good, so both Tatijana (Markic) and Paxton (Patterson) did a good job against Montana State-Northern. Their girls were huge."
Against ERU, ranked the equivalent of 36
th in the NAIA, Giacomazzi said the Pioneers were taken a bit off guard. "They didn't look that impressive but came out and whipped us." The coach said ERU's Erin Clark, the Lone Star Conference Freshman of the Year at West Texas A&M before transferring, was hard to handle.
No official stats were available for Saturday's match against Mesa.
"The girls did a good job blocking today. That was one of the big improvements from the first match. Alexa (Hinojos) and Jayda (Nelson) did a good job in the middle. They slowed a lot of balls down. Our middles started coming around.
"Overall our defense did a lot better; Tatijana played some great back-row defense. I was impressed with her digging and her serving."
Giacomazzi said the tournament was "good for us to see where we are and gauge what a good team (Embry-Riddle) looks like."
Wayland is back in action in another tournament next weekend in New Orleans, opening play in the Loyola Tournament against host Loyola at noon Friday then taking on Webber (Fla.) at 4. On Saturday, Wayland meets Reinhardt (Ga.) at 10 a.m. then Xavier (La.) at 2 p.m.
After that, Wayland plays University of the Southwest in Hobbs, N.M., on Sept. 1 before making its home debut in the Sooner Athletic Conference opener against Central Christian on Sept. 3.
