Alva Review-Courier -

ADA, Okla. – The Lady Mulerider Volleyball team suffered a hard-fought five-set match to East Central (25-16, 25-27, 17-25, 25-16, 13-25) on Saturday behind Bass' second triple-double performance and O'Banion's season-high 19 kills.

OF NOTE

Alexa Bass recorded her second triple-double of the season (14 kills, 38 assists, 11 digs) after being the first Lady Mulerider since 2011 to do it inside the W.T. Watson Center last week.

Bass' 14 kills and five service aces were new season-highs.

Alli O'Banion was four blocks shy of the 300-mark in total career blocks going into today's match and eclipsed that mark today with five total blocks in five sets played.

With 301 career blocks, O'Banion is now just the third Lady Mulerider to reach 300 or more career blocks in the Rally Scoring Era.

O'Banion's 19 kills in the match set a new season-high and was just one shy of her current career-high 20 kills.

Overall, SAU out-hit their opponent with 67 total team kills and a .202 attack clip in comparison to ECU's 59 total kills at a .197 attack clip.

HOW IT HAPPENED

After being tied at 7-all in the first set, Southern Arkansas made a comeback with a 7-0 run that gave them a 14-7 advantage. ECU would nearly cut their deficit in half, engineering a 13-16 score before SAU extended that gap with five consecutive points to make it 21—13, SAU.

Three kills (Bass 2, Cagle 1) and a service ace delivered by Savannah Pillow established the SAU victory at 25-16.

In the second set, SAU equipped another early advantage with a 17-9 lead. ECU bolstered a 14-3 run shortly after that allowed them to take a three point lead, 23-20. SAU reclaimed the lead, 24-23, but four Lady Tiger kills gave ECU the ultimate victory, 27-25.

Tied at one set apiece, ECU would take set three by a final decision of 25-17 and SAU answered with a 25-16 final decision in the fourth set to tie the match at 2-all and force a fifth set aided by a team 20 kills at an attack clip of .462.

In the final set, the Lady Muleriders jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and later extended that out to a 9-6 score. ECU would tie the game with a kill followed by a pair of SAU attack errors to make it 9-all. Three additional tie-scores later saw ECU take the final lead at 12-all with a 3-1 run to claim the match win over SAU, 3-2.

UP NEXT

The Lady Muleriders return home for a GAC matchup against Monticello on Thursday, October 26 with a 6 p.m. start inside the W.T. Watson Center.