WICHITA FALLS, Texas (Sept. 1) – Mallorie Koehn had 10 kills to lead a balanced attack that carried Central Oklahoma to a season-opening sweep of West Alabama Friday afternoon on the first day of the Midwestern State Invitational.
The Bronchos overcame eight attack errors to take the first set 25-19, then had 25 kills and just one error in rolling past the Tigers 25-13 and 25-10 in the final two sets to complete the rout.
UCO returns to action at 7 p.m. against the host Mustangs before finishing the weekend Saturday against Southwestern Oklahoma (11 a.m.) and Eastern New Mexico (5 p.m.).
"We struggled some at the start, but came back and played pretty well in the last two sets," said 12th-year head coach Edgar Miraku. "I thought we made a lot of good swings offensively and it was a good way to start."
The Bronchos had a sizzling .342 attack percentage for the match, notching 36 kills against just nine errors in 79 attacks.
Koehn's 10 kills topped the team, Addison Wimmer and Sydney Huck added eight each and all three hit .350-plus. Wimmer didn't have an error in 11 attempts to hit a torrid .727, while Koehn was at .400 (two errors in 20 attacks) and Huck .353 (two errors in 17 tries).
UCO also got 14 assists, five digs, four kills and two service aces from freshman Riley Roberts, 13 assists from Lindsey Houran and 11 digs from Katie Le.
Wimmer led the way in the opening-set win with five kills, while Le had six digs.
The teams traded the lead in the early going before UCO used a 4-0 spurt to surge in front for good, turning a 6-5 deficit into a 9-6 lead. That grew to 13-8 on a Wimmer kill and it was a five-point lead again at 16-11 after back-to-back kills by Koehn and Huck.
West Alabama was within four at 18-14, but the Bronchos stayed safely in front as Wimmer had three kills down the stretch and Huck capped off the set with a hard smash down the middle.
The Bronchos were up 6-5 in the second set before going on a 14-2 run to blow it open and take a 20-7 lead. Wimmer had three of UCO's six kills during that stretch, while Jenna Karp added an ace and Huck and Hannah Barry teamed up for a block.
Huck and Koehn knocked down kills and Koehn served up an ace on set point to give the Bronchos a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
Central never trailed in the third set to close it out. It was close at 6-4 before the Bronchos seized control, going on a 10-2 run to go up 16-6 as Lari Migliorino had a pair of aces and a kill.
Huck had two kills and joined Barry for a block as the lead grew to 20-8, then Roberts notched a kill and ace to help UCO finish off its 10th straight season-opening win.
