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NATCHITOCHES, La. — The Louisiana Tech Volleyball team showed late-set toughness on Saturday as the Bulldogs won the exhibition match 3-1 over Northwestern State inside Prather Coliseum.
LA Tech, playing in its lone tune-up before the regular season gets underway on Friday, Aug. 29, got off to a slow start by dropping the first set, but the Bulldogs were able to win the crunch-time points to narrowly take the next three sets (17-25, 25-23, 26-24, 25-23).
The Lady Demons came out firing, hitting .444 in the opening frame to take a convincing 25–17 win. But from there, LA Tech settled in to claw back into control.
The second set swung back and forth before LA Tech closed with a flurry, taking it 25–23 on a kill from Ryan Rusher. The Bulldogs again had to grind through extra points in the third, edging NSU 26–24 behind swings from Gabrielle Hairston and Jailen Hurley.
In the fourth, LA Tech built an early cushion but still had to withstand a late NSU push. With the set tied at 23, the Bulldogs capitalized on a pair of Lady Demon errors and sealed the 25–23 win to finish off the match.
Hurley and Zari Gillispie combined for timely kills in crunch time, while Sydnee Carter (16 assists), Emerson Taylor (15 assists), and Grace Krohn (nine assists) steadied the offense. Meanwhile, Riley Steubing anchored the back row with 21 digs.
For first-year head coach Scott Mattera‘s group, the exhibition match was primarily about getting playing time for everyone and using the film and notes as valuable preparation for the upcoming season. Mission accomplished.
QUOTABLES
Head coach Scott Mattera
“This was about as perfect of an exhibition match experience as we could have hoped for, not that we played perfectly but that we got out of it exactly what we needed; got first game deer in headlights hesitations out of the way, resilience to pull out of it, playing time for everyone, and lots of great video and notes to work on. And it’s always nice to win. Was really happy with how we finished. Each game win was tight in crunch time and we executed to win. Our middles were really effective and we probably need to get them the ball bit more, but today was hard because of how aggressive NSU’s serve was.”
UP NEXT
LA Tech will travel south to Hammond to take part in the Southeastern Showdown. The Bulldogs will play two matches on Friday, Aug. 29 against Jackson State (10 a.m. CT) and host Southeastern (7 p.m. CT), followed by a Saturday match versus ULM (11 a.m. CT).
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