SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. -- The John Brown University volleyball team out-hit Oklahoma City in two of three sets, but the Stars still managed to pull off the sweep to end the Golden Eagles' six-match winning streak on Friday (Sept. 6) night inside Bill George Arena.
Senior Jessica Schultz posted a team-best 11 kills and hit .318 (11-4-22) and sophomore Carrie Ciesla passed out 17 assists and grabbed a double-double with 10 digs in the loss.
"Tonight's match was an awesome environment to play in," head coach Ken Carver admitted. "We had the opportunity to face the leading team in conference so far this early part of the season and we were fired up and ready to play. Unfortunately, for all of the energy the crowd was giving, we were not able to capitalize on that and played a match that was far too sloppy to win against one of the top teams in the conference.
"There were definitely times when we executed our game plan and in those moments is when we were able to go on runs. However, we committed far too many unforced errors tonight and OCU was able to take advantage of those. We struggled in both service areas tonight giving up nine aces, which was our season high, and committed six service errors as well. Additionally, we just didn't locate our serves where we needed to on a consistent basis and allowed City's very good libero far too many opportunities to pass an in-system ball."
Marijana Bjelobrk paced the Stars (8-1, 2-0) with three aces and added nine kills in the win. Lacy Beeler led the OCU offense, however, to the tune of 12 terminations. Sophia Salak nabbed a double-double, assisting on 31 of the visitors' 38 kills and scooping 12 JBU attack attempts.
Despite stating out the match hitting .053 (11-9-38) in the first set, the Stars rebounded to finish the match at a .165 clip (38-19-115). The hosts, meanwhile, battled through a difficult second set to improve to .286 (11-3-28) in the third and final set, finishing the match at .157 (33-17-102).
"As much as this loss stings, we don't have time to dwell on it as we face Southwestern Christian tomorrow afternoon in less than 24 hours. In order to salvage the split on the weekend, we'll need to focus on cutting down significantly on the errors we make and do a much better job of staying focused on executing the game plan we have for the match."
Up Next
The Golden Eagles will complete its weekend when it welcomes Southwestern Christian (Okla.) to Bill George Arena on Saturday (Sept. 7) at 1 p.m. John Brown will continue the homestand next weekend as Southwestern A.G. (Texas) and Texas Wesleyan make their way to Siloam Springs.
