Box Score BETHANY, Okla. — The Sawyer Center has been a tough place to play this season for Southern Nazarene's opponents and Friday was no different as SNU knocked off Arkansas Tech for the first time since joining the Great American Conference with a 3-1 (25-21, 25-19, 23-25, 25-17) win.
 
The Crimson Storm (16-6, 6-0 GAC) have dropped just one match inside the Sawyer Center this year going 6-1 at home and kept the GAC record perfect.
 
Emily Dick tied her career-high with nick blocks as SNU posted 14 blocks as a team. The junior also had seven kills, hit .417 and had four digs. Jamie Hope had five blocks and 14 digs while Kira Roberts had five blocks and seven kills. Abbey Bell also posted 13 digs.
 
"That's the thing we focus on more than anything else is what we do defensively," said SNU Head Coach Kevin Ingram. "We spend more time on that every day. We want our offense to transition out of our defense. If we take care of the ball and put the ball in a good position, then offensively we can run what we need to run and our hitters can be productive."
 
Taylor Jacobs led the offensive side with 18 kills and had seven digs and four blocks as she hit .385. Emilee Crawford also had eight kills. Taylor Chase finished with 25 assists before Kaylee Piatt closed it out with 11 assists.
 
"Taylor (Jacobs) didn't hesitate today," said Ingram. "She just went. There was a couple of places where we could place attacks when we were out of system and where she couldn't swing as hard and she placed them beautifully. That opened up what we were able to do."
 
The Crimson Storm hit .213 (46-17-136) and held the Golden Suns (13-9, 4-3 GAC) to just a .124 clip.
 
Southern Nazarene hit its best in the opening set at .289 (13-2-38). The Storm trailed 3-1 to start the match, but Jacobs sparked an 8-2 run to give SNU a 9-5 lead and the Storm never trailed from that point on. Jacobs had five kills and hit .400 in the set while Crawford had eight kills and hit .308.
 
"We talked about starting fast coming out of the locker room," said Ingram. "This is a good team with some good size. We wanted to get in their head a bit and we felt like we did that with our blocking. That was key in what we did."
 
SNU raced out to a 15-4 advantage in the second set and had to hold off a charging ATU team the rest of the way. The Golden Suns got as close as four at 23-19 before back-to-back kills by Jacobs and Chase put it away and gave the Storm a 2-0 lead.
 
Arkansas Tech didn't go away quietly though as it led nearly from start to finish in the third set. It held its biggest lead at 16-12 before SNU rallied to tie it at 18. The two had four more ties with the final one coming at 22 before ATU put it away with a 3-1 run to end the set.
 
In the final set, Piatt broke a 9-9 tie with a kill and sparked a 5-1 run as SNU led 14-10. The Golden Suns cut it to 14-11 and were within three again four more times, but that was as close as they came. SNU led 19-16 late in the third, when Dick ripped a kill and started a 6-1 run to close out the match.
 
The Storm now get set to host East Central, Tuesday, for a 7 p.m. GAC contest.