Conway – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears opened their home conference schedule, and a three-match week, on Tuesday night, hosting the Southeastern Louisiana Lady Lions at the Prince Center. After suffering their first sweep of the season at Stephen F. Austin on Saturday, the Sugar Bears returned to their dominant form on Tuesday night, picking up their sixth straight-set victory of the year, 25-14, 25-15, 25-18.
Central Arkansas (11-4, 1-1 SLC) took the first three points of the match before a short 3-0 Southeastern Louisiana (1-12, 0-2 SLC) tied the score again. The sides would trade the next four points before the Sugar Bears took 10 of the next 11 points to take control of the set. Central Arkansas hit a blistering .476 in the set, getting three kills apiece from seniors
Haley Tippett,
Kellen Dunn, and
Samantha Anderson.
SLU would build a one-point lead four different times over the first 11 points of the second set, the only period of the match they would lead all evening, before a 9-2 Sugar Bear run broke a 6-6 tie and put Central Arkansas in control again. The Lady Lions would cut the Central Arkansas lead to 17-14, but the Sugar Bears would take eight of nine points to close out the set. Tippett and Dunn each added four kills to their counts, while freshman
Madi Bowles chipped in with three.
Southeastern would hang around early in the first until Central Arkansas capped a 4-0 run with a block from
Ravin Rhodes and
Abbie Harry to take a 15-9 lead. The Sugar Bears refused to let the Lady Lions rally, keeping the advantage at at least five points the rest of the way. Anderson led Central Arkansas with three kills in the set, while Rhodes had five blocks and Harry had three.
On the night, Dunn tallied a match-high nine kills while hitting .375, and Central Arkansas got seven kills on a .500 hitting percentage from Tippett and six kills on a .625 mark from Anderson. Sophomore
Bailey Waddington keyed the UCA offense on the night, handing out 30 assists to go along with five service aces. On the defensive front,
Emily Doss led the Sugar Bears with a match-high seven digs, while Rhodes pulled down six blocks.
"I was really pleased with the serving from Bailey tonight, Sam was her usual dominant self, Kellen has been able to put good performances together in back-to-back matches, Abbie was able to come in and do some good things, and Haley is getting it done for us," said UCA head coach Jeni Jones Chatman. "I was pleased that our players were able to put in the information that we talked about yesterday in practice and were able to apply it right away. That's something that, as coaches we're always working on, and to see us actually do that for the first time all year was really exciting."
Central Arkansas continues its three-match homestand on Thursday night, hosting the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders at 6:00 PM.
"They're a really good team," said Chatman of the Islanders. "They've got some players in different positions; the girl that played right side is setting for them this year, and she's doing a great job. Sometimes they're in a five-one, other times they morph into a six-two, depending on the situation, but they're a traditional Corpus team. They're very solid, they've got attackers everywhere, and they run a fast offense, so it's going to be a battle. "
