BETHANY - The Southern Nazarene University volleyball team continued a six-match home stand on Friday, opening the 2019 SNU/OBU Volleyball Classic in the Sawyer Center. The Crimson Storm hosted four matches on the day, splitting their results in the first and last matches of the day.

SNU (8-3) took a straight sets loss to Drury University (5-6) in the first match of the day, but the Storm rebounded to take a dominant victory over Randall University (7-8) in the afternoon contest.

Drury entered the tournament with a deceiving record in part because of their difficult early season schedule, and SNU had their hands full from the start. The Storm were playing without Bailee Turang in the match, but early on, Kayla Thomas stepped to the forefront. The junior from New Braunfels, Texas had five kills in the first set against the Panthers, but Drury was able to exceed SNU's success attacking the ball, hitting .400 in the set and taking the frame 25-19. The Storm struggled to deal with the Panthers in either of the final two sets as well, as SNU struggled to find kills in the second set, and in the third, they had a hard time slowing the Drury offense down as the Panthers took each frame by scores of 25-18 to complete the sweep.

Thomas led the SNU offense with 11 kills in the match, and she added a pair of blocks, Kylie Smith dished out 29 assists, and Logan Matthews had 16 digs. Bailey Grimes added seven kills, and Meagan Ellis notched six kills as well.

SNU got Turang back into the mix for the afternoon contest against Randall, and that helped in more ways than one. Turang played in only two sets in the match, but she belted seven kills on only 10 attacks, and her presence helped open things up for others on the SNU front line. Thomas in particular benefited, as she put up an astounding 10 kills on 13 attempts, hitting .615 in the match for SNU. Sunny Batschelett also had seven kills on 12 swings, and 11 different members of the SNU team had at least one kill.

The Crimson Storm scuffled a bit early in the first set, allowing the Saints to hang around, but the Storm took the lead early at 8-7 and never relinquished it after that on their way to the 25-17 set win. SNU stormed out of the gate in the second set, and they were dominant throughout. They opened the set on an 8-2 run, and later runs of 6-0 and 5-0 helped SNU take the win in the set 25-9. As the third set developed, the Storm went to the bench to get some of the younger players valuable playing experience, as Breckynn Myers, Kayla Little, Evetta Soma, Rachel Tichenor, and Claire Simpson all saw significant playing time in the match, and they took a 25-16 win in the set to complete the sweep.

SNU attacked the ball at a .372 pace in the match, racking up 46 kills on 86 attempts. Smith handed out 39 assists, and she added five kills and eight digs as well, while Matthews had 13 digs. Grimes had five kills and two blocks, and Jacy Braziel chipped in four scoring swings.

The Storm will be back in action bright and early on Saturday morning, taking on the Cardinals of William Jewell College (3-6) at 9 a.m. SNU will also battle Southwest Baptist University (2-8) to wrap up the tournament at 4 p.m.