WICHITA FALLS, Texas (Sept. 1) – Sydney Huck knocked down 16 kills and Jenna Karp added 11 as Central Oklahoma plastered host Midwestern State Friday night to complete first-day play in the Midwestern State Invitational.
The Bronchos cruised past the Mustangs 25-15, 25-16, 25-12 for their second sweep of the day in the season-opening tournament. UCO wraps up the weekend Saturday, taking on Southwestern Oklahoma at 11 a.m. and Eastern New Mexico at 5 p.m.
"There's still a lot of things to clean up, but we played pretty well overall," head coach Edgar Miraku said. "We were able to get a lot of players on the court and that's important, especially early in the season as we try to figure out everybody's role."
The Bronchos had a .333 attack percentage in the win after hitting .342 in a rout of West Alabama earlier in the day.
Huck led the way. The hard-hitting sophomore had just two errors in 32 attacks in collecting her match-high 16 kills for a .438 attack percentage.
Karp had seven of her 11 kills in the third set while adding a couple of blocks. UCO also got eight kills each from Mallorie Koehn and Addison Wimmer.
Riley Roberts and Lindsey Houran both tallied 20 assists in sharing setter duties, with Roberts adding 11 digs and three kills while Houran also had five digs and two kills. Katie Le led the back-row defense with 13 digs.
UCO jumped on top early in the opening set, getting three kills from Huck and two from Koehn in grabbing a 9-2 lead. It was 11-3 after a Koehn kill and MSU error, but the Mustangs went on a 6-1 run to pull within 12-9.
The Bronchos answered back with four unanswered points, getting kills from Roberts and Wimmer along with a Koehn ace and Midwestern attack error. That made it 16-9 and UCO pulled away from there, finishing off the set on a combined block by Karp and Roberts.
Two MSU errors along with kills by Barry and Koehn staked the Bronchos to a quick 4-0 lead in the second set, though the Mustangs rallied to go ahead 9-8. Houran's dump at the net tied it, then Barry and Wimmer had back-to-back kills to put UCO on top to stay at 12-10.
Central kept up the pressure from there and the Mustangs had no answer. Huck had three kills, Karp a kill and solo block and Le an ace in a 9-2 run that made it 21-12 and the Bronchos coasted in from there.
UCO trailed 8-7 in the third set before unleashing a devastating 18-5 run to win going away. Karp hammered down four kills during one five-point sequence, Koehn served a pair of aces and Huck had three kills down the stretch as the Bronchos finished off the second sweep of the day.
