FT. WORTH, Texas -- In the second day of the SAC/RRAC Clash, the John Brown volleyball team swept past both opponents with a 3-0 (25-11, 25-15, 25-13) win over Langston (Okla.) and a quick 3-0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-16) victory over St. Thomas (Texas) on Saturday inside the Sid Richardson Center.
With the victories, the Golden Eagles improve to 3-1 on the young season. Between the two contests, senior Audrey Dearien posted 25 kills and nine service aces while senior Melissa Bakke added 19 kills in the victories. With the losses, Langston and St. Thomas fall to 0-3 and 1-3, respectively.
John Brown now moves to 12-4 (.750) against RRAC competition in the previous three seasons.
"Great way to close out the tournament and put an exclamation point on the first weekend of play," noted head coach Ken Carver. "We played well as evidenced by our record and some elements of our game showed what we are potentially capable of this season. There are still plenty of things to work on this next week in preparation for our second weekend of play, but I'm very pleased of our team's effort and performance to open the season."
JBU came out swinging, sticking 13 kills in the first frame against Langston, hitting at a .303 percent pace. The Lions struggled to keep up and committed seven errors while only landing four kills (-.100 percent). Four different players, including freshman Bailei Brown, recorded kills as John Brown blew open a 3-3 tie with a 10-2 run. Six more Lion errors fueled John Brown's run to an easy 25-11 first-set victory.
St. Thomas jumped into the lead early in the second set, 8-6, but back-to-back kills from Dearien and Bakke jump-started a 9-1 rally that vaulted JBU back in front, 14-9. The errors continued to mount for Langston, allowing John Brown to run away with the second set, 25-15.
In the third set, an unprecedented occurrence happened when Dearien launched five services aces on six attempts, breaking open a 3-3 tie into a 9-3 lead. The Lions pulled as close as 12-9, but a Bakke termination and a Bayli Reagan ace returned the lead to five. Up 14-9, John Brown closed out the match on an 11-4 tear, powered by a pair of Alyssa Arnold aces and six LU errors.
Dearien's 11 kills equaled the entire Lion squad as she added six total aces. Bakke totaled six kills and five digs while Arnold accumulated 25 assists, a game high, and nine digs. Off the bench, sophomore Beth Brankle led both teams with 10 digs in the victory as JBU hit .244 percent (32-12-82) on the afternoon.
Amber Warren led all Lions with six terminations and nine digs in the loss.
The second matchup proved just as quick for the Golden Eagles against St. Thomas. The JBU defense held the Celts to a mere .019 hitting percentage (26-24-103) while Dearien's match-high 14 kills powered John Brown to a .308 hitting mark (40-12-91) in the sweeping effort.
Arnold, for the second day in a row, set a career-high, this time with 34 assists. This bests her previous mark, set yesterday, by three. Bakke contributed 13 kills while Blasingame added seven terminations and a match-best five block-assists.
The Celts jumped out to a quick 4-0 start in the first frame only to have JBU charge back with a 10-4 rally of its own. Terminations from Bakke and Dearien kept UST to a four-point deficit until a kill from junior Karis Buff and an ace from junior Molli Pugh built a seven-point lead, 19-12. Two Bakke kills helped close the first set easily, 25-17.
Set two featured another short-lived UST lead, but mounting errors allowed John Brown to take another 10-8 lead after Dearien's second kill of the set. Five more attack errors lit a 7-1 JBU run that forced a 17-10 score. Dearien ended a brief 4-0 UST rally with a kill, and up 24-16, Blasingame capped off the match with a kill to end a three-point rally by the visitors.
"Really proud of our team's focus, intensity and efficiency on the court today to close out the tournament," Carver added. "We had to face two different styles of play from the opponents we faced. Against Langston, we faced a team that was going to struggle against our aggressive serving and make a lot of out of system plays. One of our main goals was to work to get the ball back into system once it came back over to our side of the net and run our tempo of offense. Our first ball contact in serve receive and defensive transition was on point and allowed us the opportunity to run a more balanced offense.
"Against St. Thomas, we were facing an opponent similar to us with several players who are very dynamic, powerful hitters. While we didn't get nearly as many aces against UST, we did a great job of locating our serves that limited their offensive options. Our block woke up in a big way too against their aggressive attackers, which further frustrated their side of the net. Alyssa did another fine job of running a balanced attack by moving the ball around."
The Golden Eagles will return to action on Friday (Aug. 28) in the St. Thomas tournament in Houston, Texas. JBU will face Southwestern (Kan.) and Wiley (Texas) in day one at 3 and 7 p.m., respectively.
