GOODWELL, Okla. – With an opportunity to pull into a tie in the Sooner Athletic Conference standings with Oklahoma-Panhandle State, the Wayland Baptist Pioneers fell a bit flat, falling to the Aggies here Tuesday evening, 25-14, 25-23, 25-20.
"Tonight we just didn't execute our skills like we did last week," Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi said. "Not to make excuses, but we had a couple of players who are sick and just played a play or two."
Wayland (6-14, 6-9 SAC) took OPSU (15-9, 8-7) to four before falling in Plainview when the teams met in the first half of SAC play in Plainview on Sept. 13. The rematch wasn't that close as the Pioneers never really found their groove.
After the lopsided first set, Wayland fell behind 8-1 to start the second. The Pioneers battled back to tie it at 14 and even took the lead at 22-21 and again 23-22. But the Aggies won the next three points with back-to-back kills by Joelle Laforce and a finishing ace.
In the third, the Pioneers owned a four-point lead early on, but OPSU gradually caught and then overtook Wayland, 20-15. After a timeout, WBU strung together four straight points – including a pair of aces by
Maria Eduarda Motta (Motta's three aces were all Wayland managed) – but the Aggies regrouped during a timeout and closed the match with a 5-1 run.
Wayland ended with 27 kills, led by
Fade Ogunbade with seven and
Chante Moore with six, but committed 19 hitting errors and wound up at .063. Angela Youngs paced OPSU, which hit .132, with a dozen kills.
Samantha Ingram, who recorded 22 sets, and
Brenna Daniel logged 17 digs each, and
Elizabeth Wirth added 12. WBU was held to its second-lowest blocking night with just four.
Said Giacomazzi, "
Ava Pinter (four kills, .250) did well coming off the bench."
Wayland next heads to Siloam Springs, Ark., to take on John Brown (16-5, 11-3), ranked the equivalent of 37
th in the NAIA, at 7 p.m. Friday. JBU swept Wayland when the teams met in Plainview Sept. 17, 25-19, 25-20, 25-23. The Golden Eagles take a four-match win streak into their non-conference home match against College of the Ozarks (Mo.) on Wednesday.
