John Brown volleyball pulls out 3-2 win against SAGU
Junior Taylor Glover turned in a career performance with 21 kills, and the John Brown University volleyball team flipped a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 victory over Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas) on Friday night inside Bill George Arena.
The Golden Eagles (8-3, 2-1 Sooner Athletic) improved to 2-0 this season in five-set matches and used set scores of 25-23, 23-25, 21-25, 25-17, 15-13, to end a three-match losing skid to the Lions (8-4, 2-1), dating back to 2017.
“What a great match tonight and another absolutely great environment to play in,” head coach Ken Carver said. “This was two of the top teams in the conference going toe-to-toe with one another.
“I was really pleased with how we came out to start the match. I think we ran a balanced offense and executed really well on both sides of the ball. In sets two and three, we didn’t do enough of the small things well and had a few too many errors. In the mustwin fourth set we did a good job of getting back to doing those small things better and as a result won that set with the biggest margin of the entire match.”
The fifth set didn’t start out well for the Golden Eagles, however, as the hosts quickly found themselves in a difficult 6-2 hole after consecutive kills from SAGU’s Ava Myers. Following a Golden Eagle timeout, the momentum shifted.
Glover’s third kill of the fifth set broke the streak and sophomore Jenna Lowery served JBU on a 8-1 rally that featured a service ace and a pair of kills from senior Carly McKinney and junior Jaden Williams. Up 9-7, the hosts maintained the lead until the Lions knotted the score at 11 apiece. Back-to-back Glover terminations forced SAGU head coach Hank Moore into his final time of the set, and SAGU stayed alive with an Emma Tompkins kill to pull within one, 14-13.
Then, in fairly anticlimactic fashion, Miranda Solis’ ensuing serve landed out of bounds, completing the John Brown comeback that saw JBU set a season-high with 65 total kills.
“To SAGU’s credit, they came out of the gate fast in the deciding set and had us on the ropes,” added Carver. “Things were looking bleak, but our team still had plenty of fight left. We’ve been close a number of different times against SAGU over the past several years and have come up short, so I’m really happy that our team was able to show a lot of grit and poise in pulling out the victory against a very good team.”
Glover finished the match hitting .348 (21-5-46), while McKinney turned in her third double-double of the season with 14 terminations and a team-best 20 digs. Seniors Jessica Schultz and Kinzee Mayo each contributed eight kills, but played a big part in the blocking performance, posting four and two rejections, respectively.
Ava Myers’ 25-kill performance was a match-high for the Lions, while teammate Sophia Ivy passed out 48 assists in the loss. Nikki Almaguer contributed 27 digs in the back line.
The John Brown defense, which gobbled up 90 digs, nearly a season high, held the Lions to a .176 attacking clip (57-25-182), while the hosts rode 30 assists from sophomore Carrie Ciesla and another 22 from Morgan Fincham, a careerbest performance, to a .230 effort (65-23-183).
John Brown continued its homestand on Saturday against Texas Wesleyan. Results were not available at presstime.