Conway – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears returned to the friendly confines of the Prince Center on Thursday evening, hosting the Lady Lions of Southeastern Louisiana. The Sugar Bears dominated the match, snapping a four-match losing streak with a straight set victory over SLU.

Central Arkansas (9-11, 3-5 SLC) stormed out of the gates in the first set, building a 21-3 lead in the first set, before cruising to a 25-10 win behind a red-hot .476. The Sugar Bears limited the Lady Lions (3-16, 2-4 SLC) to just three kills in the set while sophomores Haley Tippett, Samantha Anderson, Nicole Peters, and Kellen Dunn each equaled that number.

"We changed some things up in practice, not only from a technical standpoint, but also from a mentality standpoint, and I think our players really bought into those changes," said UCA head coach Jeni Jones Chatman. "They came out and executed at a very efficient level."

The Sugar Bears again built a large lead in the second set, opening on a 13-6 run before SLU cut the lead to 15-12 to force a UCA timeout. UCA would take advantage of the stoppage, taking 10 of the next 13 points to extend their lead in the match to 2-0 with a 25-15 win in the set. UCA upped its attack percentage to .542 in the set, as five players hit at least .500. Tipped added four kills to her tally, while Anderson and Peters each added three.

UCA continued its trend of opening the set strongly in the third, building a 9-3 lead to cause an SLU timeout. It would be the Lady Lions that would charge out of the timeout this time, taking six of the next eight points to cut the UCA lead to 12-9 before the Sugar Bears responded with six straight points to make it 18-9. From that point on the teams would trade points and short runs, with UCA securing the match with another 25-15 win. Junior Megan Nash led the way in the set with five kills, while Anderson added four.

For the night, the Sugar Bears hit .420 with five players hitting over .340. Freshman Elizabeth Armstrong dished out a match-high 32 assists as Tippet and Anderson tied for the match-high with 10 kills apiece and Nash and Dunn each added seven. Defensively, freshman Rayna Jefferis dug nine attacks, while Nash had a match-high four blocks.

"I think it's huge," said Chatman of the Sugar Bears' efficiency on the night. "I think our service pressure was really great tonight, and that hasn't been where we need it to be. We had six aces to four errors, and we haven't had a ratio like that lately; it's been upside-down too many times. I think that was contagious, and we just went after it in all aspects. I thought our blocking was very disciplined tonight, obviously eight blocks is a good ratio, but there were a few times they covered a ball up and I thought our block was incredibly disciplined, and that's something we haven't seen. I'm just really pleased with the buy-in mentality our players came in with."

The Sugar Bears return to action on Saturday at noon, hosting the New Orleans Privateers in their annual Dig Pink Match.

"We have to follow the game plan as well as we did tonight," said Chatman of the upcoming match. "That's one of the things we talked with the players about; missing a defensive assignment once, or an attacking assignment, or a blocking one, yeah, it's just one point, but if everybody is taking that attitude, it can quickly lead to a big point string in a negative direction, so we have to continue to buy in and execute."