Long Beach, Calif. – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears closed out their appearance in the Loyola Marymount/Long Beach State Mizuno Invitational with a pair of matches on Saturday. The Sugar Bears opened the day with a 3-0 loss to the Oakland Golden Grizzlies before falling to the Long Beach State 49ers 3-0 in their second match.
In the day's first match, Central Arkansas (2-8) hit just .065 in the first set, dropping into a 1-0 hole thanks to a 25-21 set loss. Senior
Heather Schnars and sophomore
Megan Nash led the way for the Sugar Bears in the set, tallying three kills each.
Oakland (3-6) outhit Central Arkansas .407 to .097, but the Sugar Bears got four kills from Schnars and three from freshman
Samantha Anderson in addition to four service aces and five service errors from the Golden Grizzlies to keep it close, but still fell 26-24 in the set.
The Sugar Bears upped their hitting percentage to .289 in the third set, as Schnars added eight kills to her total, but were unable to put themselves on the board, falling 25-23 to drop the match 3-0.
For the match, Central Arkansas was led by Schnars' match-high 15 kills and fellow senior
Amy South's 26 assists. Defensively, Schnars had a team-high seven digs, while Anderson and Nash each collected four blocks.
In the night cap, the first set saw Long Beach State (8-2) hit a blistering .500 en route to a 25-16 win that put the Sugar Bears down 1-0 in the match. Juniors
Rachel Sharp and
Fulani Petties each tallied three kills.
In the second set, the Sugar Bears hit .226, and got six kills from Schnars and an additional three from Sharp, but fell to the 49ers 25-21.
Central Arkansas pushed LBSU to the brink in the third set behind four kills from both Schnars and Sharp, but a 4-0 run by the 49ers gave LBSU a 25-23 win in the set for a 3-0 victory in the match.
Schnars and Sharp led the Central Arkansas attack with 11 and 10 kills, respectively, while South (17) and sophomore Kristine Hjembo (11) combined for 28 assists. Freshman
Amanda Dimon led the Sugar Bear defense with nine digs, and Nash and Anderson each had a team-high three blocks.
The Sugar Bears open their Southland Conference schedule at home on Thursday night, hosting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the first match of the UCA Volleyball Crain Automotive Invitational. The match is set to begin at 7:00 PM.
