2008 Woodie Awards
Long time in the making
'Cats earn first MIAA home victory in seven years
Shawn Daughtery
Issue date: 9/28/07 Section: Sports
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Coach Richardson and the SBU Lady Bearcats scored their first MIAA win this season with a victory over Missouri Western State University on Saturday afternoon.
It was only SBU's second match at home this season.
However, to get to this victory SBU had to match up against local rival Drury University, and conference foe #8 Truman State University.
The Bearcats dropped match one of the three matches of the week at Drury on Wednesday (0-3). This was after defeating them earlier this year (3-0) at the Missouri Southern Invitational.
"We came in too relaxed," said Richardson. "You don't relax after you've already beat the same team earlier in the season. We couldn't get into the grove."
Friday night, in front of the home crowd, eighth-ranked Truman State completed a three game sweep against the Bearcats.
This, however, was not done without a fight. In three games (18-30, 26-30, 20-30) SBU fought till the very end.
"They played extremely well against Truman," said Richardson. "Their coaches complimented to us about the drastic improvement in our team."
Saturday, after a short night of rest, the Bearcats were back in the gym two hours before the match warming up for Missouri Western.
The fans, 405 in all, started to filter in 20 minutes before the match. The people were there, and the stage was set. It was going to be a match to remember.
To start the day, the teams exchanged volleys back and forth all the way until it stood at 25-28 in favor of Missouri Western. SBU rallied back to tie it at 29, but Missouri Western would win off of two quick errors to finish game one 29-31.
SBU was not about to turn over, and it was shown by game two and three (30-18, 30-27). This included a rally in game three when SBU started off 1-4 to Missouri Western.
However, as the match lengthened, the girls started to lose their edge.
The errors increased; the kills decreased, and the final score came out with SBU on the short end (23-30).
In the final game, game five, where the first to score 15 wins, SBU drew it down to the line.
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