GRAMBLING, La. – The Alabama State University women's volleyball team took a 3-1 loss on Sunday afternoon against the Grambling State Tigers in a Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) contest inside the Fredrick C. Hobdy Assembly Center.
The Hornets (6-17, 4-6 SWAC) couldn't find a groove in the face of a strong Tigers (9-12, 5-4 SWAC) defensive unit, while the opposition's attack was extremely effective in the four-set victory that put them over .500 heading into the last few matches of the regular season.
The ASU points from the first set were almost exclusively claimed on kills, with
Kaylen Hines recording seven of the 17 scores and
Kamrynn Clay assisting Hines on five of those seven. Unfortunately, as it hoped to rely on opposing errors to make the game closer, GSU had just one attack error, while its 13 kills lifted it to a 25-17 set win.
Set two was much closer, with the two teams going back and forth all throughout the set. Three attack errors and a pair of
Alexis Williams gave the Hornets a four-point lead at the halfway mark, but a short Grambling run knotted things up at 15. With Clay at the service line, the Hornets were able to get seven of the next eight points for a 22-16 advantage, although the following eight points saw a similar pattern that favored the other team and tied things up at 23. With one team needing to win by two, it was Alabama State's 3-1 series that wrapped up the 26-24 effort, closed out by a classic Clay-to-Hines kill.
Little went the way of the visitors for the rest of the match. Grambling ran out to an early lead that it never surrendered in the third set, dominating most of the time outside of a tight spot when a cluster of attacks from both Alexis and
Taylor Williams brought the game set within one. From there, the Hornets would get just four more points in a 25-15 defeat. Set four was a little more competitive, as late pushes tied the final frame and even gave ASU a one-point advantage late, but the Tigers went ahead and won the final two points to finish things off, 25-22.
It unfortunately put a damper on another stellar showing from both Hines and Clay. Hines had her fourth 20-kill game of the season and third in the past four games as she continues to cement her place among the top-tier middle blockers in the SWAC. The same goes for her partner in crime, Clay, who had a 41-set, 10-dig double-double while adding three service aces and committing no set errors.
As a team, the Hornets were close with the Tigers in digs (64-58), assists (50-46) and kills (55-49), although Grambling State held the edge in those, along with aces and blocks, where it had an 11-3 advantage in both categories.
The Lady Hornets return to Lockhart Gymnasium for a pair of games, starting with a Friday evening meeting with Florida A&M on October 30 at 6 p.m. It welcomes Bethune-Cookman to the area two days later, November 1, for a noon matchup as it continues to look toward the end of SWAC play.
