SILOAM SPRINGS -- The John Brown University volleyball team attacked the ball at nearly .500 on Saturday (Oct. 30) afternoon as the Golden Eagles dispatched Central Christian (Kan.) in straight sets to complete their home season with a victory inside Bill George Arena.
The Golden Eagles (15-15, 9-9 Sooner Athletic) leveled their record with the 3-0 (25-8, 25-17, 25-13) sweep of the Tigers (1-27, 1-15) behind a balanced attack that featured six different players who recorded at least five kills.
JBU took control from the beginning of the opening set, and they never looked back. A 6-1 run to open the match led to an easy first set win, and that set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Central Christian did stay close in set two, as there were seven tie scores and three lead changes in the second frame, but JBU controlled the final stanza and put the match away to complete the sweep.
The story of the game was the difference in depth between the two squads. Central Christian used only one player off the bench in the match, while the Golden Eagles got 29 of its 49 kills from reserves. Sophomore Savanna Riney led the way with 10 kills, and freshman Callie Mullins and sophomore Micah Fouts had seven apiece. Freshman Taylor Golmen smashed nine kills.
Juniors Morgan Fincham (26) tied a career-high and Lauren Cloud (11) each reached double figures in assists, and the Golden Eagles notched five blocks in the match, also. JBU hit .430 (49-9-93) on the afternoon, while their defense held the Tigers to a mere -.038 (13-16-78).
"Today was a great day to celebrate our seniors, as well as wrap up the home portion of our regular season with a win," head coach Ken Carver noted. "This was the first match in about three weeks that we had our entire roster healthy and available to play, so being able to get everyone game reps today was important.
"Offensively, all of our attacking players were efficient with all of them earning a .250 mark or higher for the match. Central Christian has the tendency to make a lot of errors and play a lot of out-of-system, non-rhythmic volleyball so we talked about wanting to focus on earning our points and not their errors. Between our 49 kills, 6 service aces and 10 block assists we earned 80% of our total points which was outstanding by our team. I'm happy our team played extremely well and gave our senior players the gift of a win at our final home match of our 2021 season."
The Golden Eagles will wrap up the regular season with a southward swing, heading to Southwestern A.G. (Texas) (20-7, 13-4) and Texas Wesleyan (19-5, 14-2) on November 5-6.
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