The Lady Bison volleyball team goes into tonight’s match against the East Central Tigers with a 10-4 record on the year and a perfect 3-0 record in Great American Conference.
The team took big wins over conference rivals Arkansas Tech and Ouachita Baptist last week. On Tuesday, however, Harding fell to the University of Arkansas Fort Smith in a 3-1 match. Harding took the first set 25-20 but fell short in the next three.
The Lady Bisons are looking to recover from that loss tonight when they face East Central University at 7 p.m. Both ECU and Harding are currently undefeated in the GAC, but ECU has an overall record of 4-9.
“I’m excited about our game this Friday,” sophomore outside hitter Marindia Turner said. “We’re still looking to remain perfect in conference play and coming off of a tough loss [Tuesday] I think we have more motivation than ever to defeat East Central.”
Junior outside hitter Mollie Arnold leads the Harding offensive attack, as she continues to average just short of four kills per set as well as being second on the team in digs for the 2012 season with 115.
Arnold’s performance against Ouachita Baptist, when she racked up 17 kills, was just another day in the office as she lead the Bison attack to a win to remain undefeated in the GAC. In the game against Tech, she had 18 kills.
“It was amazing, it was,” Arnold said. “It felt like it just broke the jinx or something like that that we had. It was a mental thing with us and Tech, but winning that just made everything great.”
Fellow junior middle blocker Alyssa Short was named the GAC defensive player of the week. She has been stepping up her play as she ranks second on the team in kills with more than two kills per set as well as leading the team in blocks with an average of 1.67 a set.
She had seven kills against Arkansas Tech and eight in the Lady Bisons’ win over Ouchita Baptist.
Sophomore middle blocker Liv Savage has also been a major contributor as she hit the 100-kill mark last Thursday against Ouachita Baptist and had 11 kills in Harding’s win against Arkansas Tech.
“I thought a lot about the positives and the excitement from the crowd,” Savage said. “Everyone was getting so pumped up.”
Head Volleyball Coach Meredith Fear has been very impressed with her team’s resilience and clutch performance, especially when they need it most in the win last week against last year’s regular season champions Arkansas Tech.
“We had a lot of heart and strappiness tonight. The offensive connection with our girls went away for awhile, but they came together and came through in the clutch when we needed big points.”
The Lady Bisons’ next three matches are in conference. The first two of these three are tonight against East Central University and tomorrow against Southeastern Oklahoma State University. After those two road games the team will come back to the Rhodes to play Henderson State University at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
