HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Ouachita survived the upset attempt from Arkansas-Monticello to win in five sets in Thursday’s second quarterfinal at the Great American Conference Volleyball Championships – Presented by Subway, from the Bank of the Ozarks Arena. Three Tigers reached double figures in kills, led by Tabatha Huckabee’s 24.

OFFENSIVE LEADERS:                           
UAM –                  Shay Mitchell: 28 kills, .347 attack percentage
Kya Standford: 15 kills, .387 attack percentage, 21.0 points
Kendall Vondra: 63 assists
OUA –                  Tabatha Huckabee: 24 kills, .358 attack percentage
Caitlin Cantrell: 17 kills, .350 attack percentage
Kori Bullard: 17 kills, four aces, 23.0 points

DEFENSIVE LEADERS:
UAM –                  Macy Mitchell: 40 digs
Carolina Gasparini: 18 digs, five blocks
Stanford: 10 blocks
OUA –                   Ashley Wake: 36 digs
Stormi Leonard: 19 digs, 60 assists
Jayme Shell: 18 digs

FIRST SET HIGHLIGHTS:
Standford, Shay Mitchell and Maggie Pyles each totaled four kills as the Blossoms took the opening set, 26-24. UAM took a 13-8 lead only to see Ouachita rally off six straight points. From that point on, neither team held a lead greater than three points. Stanford hit .800 and scored 5.5 points. Kendall Vondra dished out 14 assists and Macy Mitchell tallied 14 digs in a      set that included six ties.

SECOND SET HIGHLIGHTS:
Ouachita evened the contest with a 25-14 decision in the second set. After hitting .146 in the opening set, the Tigers hit .345, led by Caitlin Cantrell, who racked up six kills and hit .750 in the set. The Tiger defense also stepped up, limiting the Blossoms to a .059 attack percentage, after they hit .229 in winning the first set. Standford continued her strong play by picking up six more kills, against only one error, in nine attempts.

THIRD SET HIGHLIGHTS:
For the second time in the contest, the Tigers and Blossoms went beyond the 25-point march as the Tigers won the set, 29-27. The set saw the score tied 10 times. Huckabee has a dominant set as after totaling five kills in the opening two sets, she tallied nine and accounted for 9.5 points. Stormi Leonard handed out 15 assists. On the UAM side, Shay Mitchell, who had hit .182 in the first two sets, hit .429 after registering six kills against only one error.

FOURTH SET HIGHLIGHTS:
The Blossoms ran off the first four points of the set and never allowed the Tigers to take the lead, despite coming back to tie the set twice. The Blossoms put together their best attacking set of the match, hitting .288. Shay Mitchell continued to excel as she collected nine kills without an error on any of her 22 attempts. Vondra registered an assist on 19 of UAM’s 21 kills in the set. She added six digs. For Ouachita, Huckabee recorded her second-straight set with nine kills and hit .600 for the set.

FIFTH SET HIGHLIGHTS:
Ouachita pulled out a 15-13 win in the decisive fifth set, a set that featured six ties and two lead changes. Kori Bullard’s fourth ace of the match gave the Tigers the winning point.

NOTABLE:

• With Ouachita’s win, teams losing the first set of a GAC Championship match improved to 8-29.
• In matches tied after two sets, the winner of set three has gone on to win 13 of the 16 such contests.
• Ouachita-UAM: eighth GAC Championship match to go five sets – the higher seed improved to 8-0.
• Ouachita: Tied GAC Championship record for digs in a match, 116 (tying its own record set vs Southwestern Oklahoma State set on November 21, 2013)
• Mitchell (UAM): 28 kills – GAC Championship single match record (old record: 24 by SWOSU’s Carly Zak vs Northwestern Oklahoma State on Nov. 19, 2015)
• UAM – tied the GAC Championship record for assists in a match with 71 (tied Arkansas Tech vs Harding on November 12, 2011)

WHAT’S NEXT:
Ouachita will face Southern Nazarene at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.

The post Ouachita edges UAM for semifinal berth in GAC Tournament appeared first on ArkansasSports.Net.

ARKADELPHIA – The Ouachita Tigers’ volleyball team defeated Arkansas Tech in three straight sets (26-24, 25-11, 25-19) on Thursday night to clinch their share of the 2016 Great American Conference regular season title, their first ever conference title under head coach Danny Prescott.

It was the fifth straight win for Ouachita, who finish the regular season with a conference-high 22 wins. Junior Kori Bullard led the Tigers with 10 kills and six blocks. As a team, Ouachita finished the match with a .342 attack percentage.

Arkansas Tech jumped out to a commanding lead in set one, forcing Ouachita to take an early timeout down 6-1. Down 14-6 in the set, the Tigers got a kill from Katie Camp to start their comeback. Behind the service of senior Ashley Wake, the Tigers cut the Golden Suns’ lead to four. Back-to-back blocks by Kori Bullard and Stormi Leonard made it 14-10.

After a Tech kill halted the rally, Ouachita got the serve right back thanks to another kill from Camp. She then held serve for four straight points to tie the set at 15-15. The two teams exchanged leads until Tech gained a two-point advantage and forcing another Ouachita timeout. Trailing 21-19, the Tigers again rallied to lock the game up at 24-24. The Tigers scored two straight with the set point coming off a kill from senior Jayme Shell.

Set two was dominated by Ouachita, winning it 25-11. Arkansas Tech was forced to take a timeout down 12-6 and then again in the second set after the Tigers extended the lead to 16-6. Camp held serve for six straight points during the Tigers’ run.

Senior Anna LeTourneau would pick up one of her two service aces on the night in the second set. Ouachita would hit .353 in the second set, committing only two attack errors to Tech’s 10. Shell led the way with three kills in set two. Junior Caitlin Cantrell came up big defensively, getting three blocks in the set.

Ouachita never trailed in set three, taking the final set 25-19. Ouachita was able to take advantage of Tech’s seven service errors and hit .294 in the finale with Bullard and Tabatha Huckabee leading the Tigers with two kills each in the set. Back-to-back errors by Tech would give Ouachita the set and the match and a share of the GAC regular-season championship.

After the match, the team recognized their four seniors Emily Alderson, Anna LeTourneau, Jayme Shell and Ashley Wake.

The win also secures the second seed in the GAC Tournament for the Tigers. They will face the seventh-seeded University of Arkansas-Monticello in the quarterfinals.

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