Box Score
MACOMB, Ill. — The Western Illinois volleyball team saw its home win streak end at five games after Summit League foe Oral Roberts came from behind to top the Fighting Leathernecks 3-2 Saturday night at Brophy Hall.
The two teams split the first two sets with Western taking set one 25-23 and the Golden Eagles winning set two 29-27 before the Leathernecks came out on top 30-28 in the third set. While the first two sets came down to close margins, ORU controlled the final two sets to take 25-16 and 15-9 wins.
In the final two sets, Western Illinois coach Kym McKay said her team didn't play with the same intensity that brought them out to the early lead.
"To go up 2-1, battling in all of those sets and to go downhill in sets four and five is really frustrating," McKay said. "Both teams were competing at the same level. The difference in four and five was that ORU competed at a much higher maturity level."
The Golden Eagles' block also became a factor in the final two sets, as ORU posted five of its seven team blocks in the final two frames.
"Going into set five, it was not a huge blocking match on either side of the net. They established their block and it really took some confidence from us," McKay said. "I think you saw a lot of fear on our side. We definitely didn't compete with toughness at that point."
ORU finished with a 75-54 advantage in kills while hitting with a .183 percentage compared to Western's .137 clip. Cait Egan led Western with 16 kills while Megan Toczek chipped in 11 and Brooke Stittleburg and Katie Hosteng both added eight.
The Golden Eagles had 97 digs compared to Western's 91. Bridget Murphy led Western with a career-high 28 digs while Stittleburg had 15 digs and Ellen Miller had 14. Miller also had 42 assists for the Leathernecks.
The loss dropped Western to 6-11 overall and 3-4 in The Summit League while ORU improved to 8-7 overall and 4-3 in the conference.
The Leathernecks next embark on a five-game road trip starting with a match at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville Monday and followed by Summit League matches at IPFW, Oakland, UMKC and Southern Utah.
"The Summit League race is very competitive. NDSU is obviously at the top and Centenary is struggling at the bottom, but the other eight teams are very similar," McKay said. "We all have the same chance of making the conference tournament. Every match is so important.
"It's definitely not going to get any easier from this point out. To have four conference matches in-a-row on the road is going to be a challenge."
