ALVA, Okla.– Northwestern Oklahoma State University volleyball dropped a tough loss to long-time rival Southwestern Oklahoma State Tuesday evening in Weatherford. The inner Great American Conference rivalry was intense as players and fans alike brought the intensity.

SWOSU took all three sets, with the Rangers battling strong in the second but could not come up with the win [9-25, 22-25, 14-25]. This allowed the Bulldogs to improve to 7-8 on the season, 3-2 in conference play. Northwestern’s record is now 12-7 and are also 3-2 in the conference.

The Black and Red struggled with only 22 kills on the evening, with four blocks. SWOSU’s strongest point was their tough serving as they earned 11 service aces throughout the match.

Jennifer Eubanks and Kaydee Honeycutt both led the Rangers with six kills, while Kiauna Clark and Claire Hodges had four a piece. Kaitlyn Robinson led the team with 11 assists with Abby Davis right behind her at seven. Sydnee Miller and Honeycutt had 11 and 10 digs respectively.

Northwestern struggled to find any sort of rhythm in the first set as the Bulldogs jumped out to an early 6-0 lead. It was all about Southwestern from there as they took advantage of Ranger errors and snatched the first set with a massive 25-9 score.

Set two was a completely different game as the Rangers battled back. SWOSU appeared to take control early in the set but some massive swings by seniors Eubanks and Clark allowed the Northwestern to rally back and tie the game 10-10. The Bulldogs began to pull away in the latter half of the set. A service ace by Robinson began a rally but the Black and Red could not hold on. Southwestern earned the second set win with a score of 22-25.

The third set started much like the first as the Bulldogs went on an 8-1 run which gave them an early lead. The Rangers attempted to battle back with kills from Hodges and Clark but were not able to really grab a run of their own. A service ace from SWOSU ended the set and match 14-25. Southwestern took the sweep 3-0.

Northwestern volleyball will be headed back to Percefull Fieldhouse for another GAC match-up against Southern Arkansas at 6 p.m. Friday evening.