WEATHERFORD, Okla. — Southern Nazarene took a shot to the mouth early, but that may have just woke SNU up as it took the final three sets in a 3-1(11-25, 25-17, 27-25, 25-19) win over Southwestern Oklahoma State Tuesday night.
 
Southern Nazarene spun its wheels in the first set while Southwestern came out firing on Senior Night. The Bulldogs quickly got out to a 9-3 lead and then used an 11-3 lead to take its biggest of the night at 20-6. It matched that lead three more times including the final set score to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
 
The Crimson Storm turned the tables completely around in the second set as they opened with a 9-3 lead and held off every run SWOSU made. The Bulldogs cut it to 10-8, but Storm used a 6-2 run, capped by three straight McKenna Qualls kills to make it 16-10. Southwestern cut it to 18-13 later, but that was as close as it came. Lexie Matthews started an 7-4 run as SNU closed out the set and tied the match at 1-1. Qualls had five kills in all in that set as SNU hit .286 as a team.
 
After big opening runs and large leads in the first two sets, neither team led by more than four in the third set. It took 15 ties and two set-points from the Bulldogs before the Storm pulled the set out. SNU trailed 24-23 and 25-24 before a kill by Courtney Bowie and back-to-back kills from Kaitlyn Vought to close out the set.
 
The Bulldogs had a fifth set in mind early in the fourth with a 9-5 lead, but SNU used a 13-4 run to take an 18-13 lead and held SWOSU off from there.
 
Vought, Qualls and Bowie combined for 40 points on the night as Vought had 12 kills, Qualls had 13 and Bowie had 11. Vought notched her second double-double of the season with 13 digs to go with three blocks. Bowie also had four blocks. McKayla Benner added four blocks as well while Lexie Matthews had two.
 
SNU (16-10, 10-5 GAC) as a team had eight blocks on the night and 95 digs, compared to five blocks and 86 digs for the Bulldogs (12-16, 8-7 GAC).
 
Abbey Bell had a team-high 20 digs while Bailee Turang and Elyse Berlin had 16. Hannah Davis also had 14 digs. Elyse Berlin notched 46 assists to record her 14^th double-double.