BETHANY, Okla. — It took until the final home match of the season, but Southern Nazarene clinched its fourth straight bid to the Great American Conference Championships Tuesday night with a 3-0 (25-23, 25-17, 25-23) win over Southwestern Oklahoma State.
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Bailee Turang notched a career-high six blocks and nearly posted a double-double with 13 kills and nine digs. She also hit .400 on the night. The Crimson Storm (13-17, 8-7 GAC) tied a season-high with nine blocks.
Makenna Hunter added six blocks to go with five kills.
Kayla Thomas chipped in with three blocks and eight kills as well.
Kylie Smith had 30 assists and seven digs while
Elyse Berlin had 14 digs.
Meagan Ellis had 13 digs and six kills.
Kami Ware also had two of the Storm's five aces.
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Southern Nazarene trailed by as much as six in the first set and was down 18-12 when
Kayla Thomas sparked a set-ending 13-5 run as SNU took a 1-0 lead in the match. The Storm had four blocks in the set and six different players had kills as Turang led the way with five.
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The Storm trailed 2-1 to open the second set, but scored 10 straight to lead 11-2. SNU pushed the lead to 14-4 before the Bulldogs used an 8-3 run to cut it to 17-12. The Storm answered with four straight to lead 21-12 and held SWOSU off from there. The Storm had three blocks in the second set as Turang had three in the set.
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There were six ties in the third set before the Bulldogs broke an 8-8 tie with two straight to lead 10-8. The Storm answered with five straight, including a kill by Turang to force a SWOSU timeout with a 13-10 lead. SNU led 18-15 when SWOSU went on a 5-1 run to take a 20-19 lead. The Storm responded with two to lead 21-20. The two tied again at 21 and 22 before back-to-back kills from
Hannah Davis and Thomas gave match point to the Storm. After a SWOSU point, Thomas put it away with the final kill of the night.
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