Southern Illinois University
3-3,0-0MVC
Oral Roberts University
6-0,0-0Summit League
Salukis fall in four sets to Golden Eagles to close out Saluki Bash
09/04/2021 | 4:44:00 | Women's Volleyball
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois University volleyball team dropped a four-set decision (19-25, 25-16, 20-25, 22-25) to Oral Roberts to close out play at the Saluki Bash Saturday afternoon.
Southern, who hit over .300 in each of its two wins on Friday, hit .169 on Saturday and struggled to give setter Anna Jaworski good passes to work with. That, in turn, made it difficult for SIU's hitters to find their rhythm.
After Southern took the opening set, 25-20 behind a strong defensive effort that limited Oral Roberts attack to a -.059 hitting percentage, the Salukis missed an opportunity to go for the jugular after the Golden Eagles, who were without head coach Frank Craig III, submitted the wrong lineup and had key players out of position.
"The match changed in the second set," head coach Ed Allen said. "They submitted the wrong lineup and were out of rotation and we didn't execute at a level that allowed us to take advantage of that. We really played poorly in the second set. There's no reason for that besides our first ball contact- both out of serve receive and out of defense. Our transition attack was poor and it didn't allow our setter to get into a rhythm. If she can't get into a rhythm, hitters can't get into a rhythm, its that simple. It was a poor offensive performance for us compared to how we played offensively yesterday."
Instead of SIU taking advantage of Oral Roberts' miscue, the Golden Eagles flipped the script and scored seven of the first eight points of the frame and never trailed. The Salukis cut their deficit down to one, 14-13, but the Golden Eagles scored the next six points to put the set away for good.
With the set score tied at 1-all, Oral Roberts seized momentum. In the third frame, the Golden Eagles used a 4-1 spurt to break a 12-all tie and didn't look back. In a fourth set that featured two lead changes and six ties, Oral Roberts scored eight of 11 points to break a 15-all tie to pull away for good.
"We were erratic," Allen said when asked to characterize his team's performance over the weekend. "We are very young and we are going to have highs and lows this season but we need to minimize the amount of time we spend in low periods. We're giving up three or four points consecutively on a regular basis and we need to give up two points at most."
Tatum Tornatta paced SIU's attack with 13 kills and five digs. Imani Hartfield hit .588 with 10 kills on 17 swings with no errors while Nsia Gittens put down double-digit kills for the second-straight match, as she finished with 10 kills.
Defensively, MacKenzie Houser led the way with 14 digs to go along with an ace. Katy Kluge chipped in 12 digs and two assists while Anna Jaworski notched the first assist-dig double-double of her collegiate career with 42 assists and 10 digs.
The Salukis are back in action on Tuesday, Sept. 7 when they take on St. Louis University inside Davies Gym at 6 p.m. Southern's home tournament this coming weekend, the Saluki Invitational, will be played at the Banterra Center.
