Megan Bartling finished with 16 kills in the win over Vanguard
SOU Opens NAIA Play with Win Over Vanguard
BOX SCORE
SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Tenth-ranked Southern Oregon opened NAIA National Championship Pool Play in strong fashion, defeating No. 14 Vanguard 4-1 (25-22, 25-15, 18-25, 25-23) Tuesday night at the Tyson Events Center.
Southern Oregon improves to 22-4 overall this season with the win, while Vanguard falls to 22-13. The Raiders will return to action tomorrow, when they will face tournament host Morningside at 8 p.m. (C.S.T.).
Megan Bartling led SOU with 16 kills, with Sarah Holgen adding 12 and Natalie Sheller tallying 10 in the victory. Caryn Westrick finished with 31 assists and also dropped the clinching kills in both the first and fourth sets. Angela Spieker added 20 assists, while Becky Johnstone tallied 21 digs and Renee Yomtob posted 15 digs.
KaUwila Lavea led both teams with 17 kills, while Jamie Heenan added 15 kills and Jessica Neves finished with 10 kills for the Lions. Alexandra Leja’s 27 assists led the team, as did Lisa Morgan’s 18 digs.
Vanguard took a quick 3-0 lead in the opening set, but SOU used a 6-3 run to tie it up at 6-6. The Lions regained a two-point lead at 10-8 before the Raiders scored five in a row to take their first lead of the set and earn a 13-10 advantage. Southern Oregon looked like it might pull away when it led 18-13, but Vanguard pulled within one at 19-18. The Raiders scored the next two points and earned the 25-22 set victory on a kill by Westrick.
The Lions scored the first point of the second set, but it was all SOU after that. The Raiders used a 12-2 run to take a nine-point lead, and the closest Vanguard would get after that was seven points back at 20-13. Bartling picked up the set-clinching kill to give the Raiders the 25-15 win and 2-0 match advantage.
Southern Oregon took a brief 2-0 lead to start the third set, but Vanguard tied it up at 2-2. With the set tied at 5-5 a few minutes later, the Lions used an 8-2 run to take a six-point lead, but the Raiders responded with an 8-2 run of their own to tie it up at 15-15. From that point, Vanguard scored the next four points and pulled away to the 25-18 set victory.
The Raiders again took an early lead in the fourth set, building a quick 4-1 advantage that they would eventually stretch to 11-6. Vanguard pulled within three after a three-point streak at 16-13, but the Raiders used a 3-1 stretch to push their lead back to five points. The Lions continued to battle back, using a 6-1 run to pull within one point at 22-21, but the Raiders scored the next two points and closed out the set 25-23 on Westrick’s fourth kill.