ROCHESTER, Mich. - Freshman middle hitter Cait Egan recorded a career-best seven block assists to contribute to Western Illinois' 13 team blocks, but it wasn't enough as Oral Roberts defeated Western, 3-1, Sunday.

Western Illinois is the first Summit League team this season to take a game from Oral Roberts at home.

"This is the first time this season that we have had a Friday-Sunday format and we handled the Saturday travel day well," Western Illinois head coach Kym McKay said. "We blocked well and took aggressive swings."

The Westerwinds (7-17, 3-7 The Summit League) took the third set, 25-22, to stay alive in the match, but fell in the fourth 25-21 to the Golden Eagles (16-6, 9-1 The Summit League). Oral Roberts won the first set 25-18 and the second set 25-19.

The Golden Eagles compiled a higher team hitting percentage in all sets except for the third set that Western took with a .238 hitting percentage. ORU recorded 60 kills to Western's 41 to take the match.

Freshman Megan Toczek hit over .400 for her second game in a row and co-led in the kill category with senior Monique Houston with nine each, while Erin Frick and Allison Gilbert each recorded eight. Setter Sarah Trimpe had 32 assists and Elise Crnjak totaled 13 digs.

"Mo and Megan had two great matches this weekend with a lot of physical offensive play," McKay said.
"Taking a set from league-leading ORU at home should give us the confidence in our ability to compete against the top teams in the league. We need to carry over how well we played on the road into our final three home matches this week."

Western Illinois will return home for three-straight matches, starting with a Tuesday match against Loyola at 7 p.m. in Western Hall.