Conway – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears returned to the court on Friday evening, taking on the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters in the Crain Automotive Invitational. The Sugar Bears hit a healthy .253 on the night, picking up the 3-0 victory.
"I think the biggest thing that changed between last night and this one were our energy and our attitude towards the match," said Central Arkansas head coach Jeni Jones. "We got over our mistakes quickly tonight and the service pressure that we had at the line was night and day from last night. That's a big key for us having success; getting them out of system with our pressure and making it a bit more predictable with what we're going to have to defend."
Louisiana Tech (6-6) jumped out to a 12-4 lead in the first set to force a timeout from Central Arkansas. The Sugar Bears (3-9) exploded out of the break, outscoring the Lady Techsters 21-4 over the rest of the set to win 25-16 and take a 1-0 lead.
The teams traded points for the majority of the second set with neither team taking a lead bigger than four points. The Sugar Bears built a 23-19 lead before a 4-0 Lady Techster run forced a Central Arkansas timeout. UCA got a kill from senior
Heather Schnars and a service ace from sophomore
Megan Nash to take the match 25-22 and extend their lead to 2-0 in the match.
The teams traded runs to open the third set, but the Sugar Bears built a 23-16 lead before Louisiana Tech cut the lead to 24-20. A kill from Schnars ended the match.
Schnars led the Central Arkansas attack with 15 kills and five service aces while adding six digs and two blocks on the defensive front. Nash, junior
Fulani Petties, and freshman
Savanah Allen combined for 15 kills from the middle blocker position.
Amy South keyed the Sugar Bears attack, dishing out a match-high 33 assists. Defensively, the Sugar Bears were led by
Rachel Sharp's match-high 13 digs and Nash's match-high four blocks.
"One of our goals was incorporating our middle attack tonight, because we just need to get that going, but also because having that attack takes pressure off our outside hitters and forces our opponents to focus on more than just that part of our attack," said Jones. "I thought Savanah [Allen] did a much better job of staying off the net, which is something that she's been working on. She gets up super quick, but often she gets too close."
The Sugar Bears are back in action tomorrow night, closing out the Crain Automotive Invitational against Alabama State at 7:00 PM. "Alabama State is a really physical team with a huge block," said Jones of the Lady Hornets. "They have players that have great range and just go for balls; they don't let anything just hit the floor. They're a very scrappy team, and watching them play Corpus Christi today was really exciting."
