Box Score
CONWAY, Ark. - The University of Central Arkansas volleyball team defeated Stephen F. Austin in four sets in Southland Conference action at the Prince Center on Saturday afternoon. With the 25-19, 24-26, 25-17, 25-20 win, the Sugar Bears improve to 11-6 overall and 3-0 in league play. They also extended their SLC winning streak to 25 matches and home streak to 21.
"I thought we did really well in our side out game," said UCA head coach Steven McRoberts. "We didn't allow a lot of runs for them, so it felt like we controlled the match."
The Ladyjacks (8-9, 1-1 SLC) were plagued by errors the entire match. In the first set, both teams connected on 12 kills, but SFA committed eight errors, while UCA only had three.
Trailing 24-20 in set two, the Sugar Bears fought off four game points, with the help of back-to-back kills from senior right side Chloe Smith, to tie it at 24-24. The Ladyjacks got kills from senior Laurel Kuepker and sophomore Sabrina Burns to take the frame 26-24.
UCA rebounded by hitting .400 with 13 kills and only one error in the third set, while SFA hit .056 and had 11 kills with nine errors. Once again both teams had the same amount of kills in the fourth set, but UCA committed five less attack errors to secure the match in their favor.
The Ladyjacks hit .118 with 52 kills and 34 attack errors, while the Sugar Bears hit .292 with 49 kills and only 11 errors. UCA had a huge advantage at the net, knocking down 11 blocks, while SFA only had five.
Sugar Bears sophomore Taylor Hammonds led the net attack with a career-high eight blocks. She also had eight kills and hit .583. Smith had 12 kills and hit .314.
"Eleven blocks is a lot for us and Taylor had a great match in the middle," said McRoberts. "Chloe Smith is really coming on since conference has started and the whole team is playing confident right now."
Two Sugar Bears recorded double-doubles – freshman setter Marissa Collins (43 assists, 10 digs) and junior outside hitter Jessica Hays (13 kills, 10 digs). Freshman middle blocker Jessica Nagy added 10 kills and junior libero Cristin Curl came up with 24 digs.
SFA was led by junior MC Bottles with 16 kills and Arielle Daron had 10. Allison Gideon recorded 41 assists and libero Madison Hanlan had 25 digs.
UCA returns to the Prince Center on Monday night for a non-conference tussle with North Dakota State, the top team out of The Summit League.
"A streak of 25 in a row is great, but our ultimate goal is to get a good seed in the SLC Tournament and go to the NCAA tourney," McRoberts said. "We have a very tough non-conference match on Monday, but the competition will be great for us."
