Oklahoma Panhandle State University

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 | Box Score 3 | Box Score 4 Goodwell, Okla.—The Aggies dropped their first four matches of the season in the annual Aggies Challenge Tournament that took place in the Oscar Williams Field House Sept. 1-3.

Taking on four Division II opponents starting with UC-Colorado Springs Thursday evening, the Aggies fell in three sets in each of their matchups over the weekend. UCCS opened their season with a 3-0 victory with scores of 25-11, 25-10 and 25-18.

Senior outside hitter Bristen Graves led the team in kills landing five on the Mountain Lions; freshman Kendra Butler totaled three kills in her first collegiate game and had one solo block. Alyssa Brinton had the game-high with 13 kills for UCCS and Morgan Evans was the leading setter totaling 24 assists for the Mountain Lions.

Five tournament games on Friday brought plenty of excitement to the OWFH as two matches went five sets and three sets went for extra points, including a 38-36 matchup against Fort Hays State and UC-Colorado Springs. With the 38 points FHSU set a new NCAA record for points in a set; that match the Tigers also notched an NCAA record for points scored in a three-set match with a total of 92, winning 29-27, 25-20 and 38-36.

The Aggies took on Missouri Southern in the fifth game of the day on Friday and put in strong performances in sets one and three, forcing extra points in the third. Despite great effort put forth by Panhandle, MSSU came out with the three-set win 25-22, 25-8 and 27-25. Junior setter Julia Ibarra offered 16 assists in the match and the Aggies' leading scorers were seniors Emily Goeken and Bristen Graves with six kills each; Goeken also served up and ace on the Lions and had one block assist for a team-high of 7.5 points. The Lions got a total of ten service aces by on the Aggies led by their libero Kat Gries who landed five. Southern's Christina Perlinger led the game with seven kills.

Saturday saw more competitive matches with one five-set game between Missouri Southern and Northwestern Oklahoma State; MSSU won the deciding set to claim their second victory of the tournament. In game four of the six-game schedule on Saturday, the Aggies met a 2-1 Texas Permian Basin team. The Falcons improved to 3-1 after defeating Panhandle 25-14, 25-21 and 25-20. The Aggies looked to make a comeback in the third set, taking a two-point lead (16-14) after a bad et by UTPB. Newcomer Kalyn Moore tied for a game-high of eight kills along with Goeken and Permian's Rachel Dixon. Aggie libero Abigail Reinick led the game in digs with eight and Kendra Butler totaled two blocks against the Falcons. Ibarra finished with 18 assists and had two of the Aggies' three aces; UTPB took seven aces on the game.

In the tournament Panhandle struggled against an undefeated Fort Hays team. The Tigers maintained their record winning in three sets 25-5, 25-9 and 25-11. The Aggies were outmatched at the net as Fort Hays got off 35 kills on 65 attacks and totaled eight blocks in the game; Panhandle landed 11 kills on 67 attacks and had four team blocks including 2.5 from senior Rylee Abert who also led the team in kills against the Tigers with three. FHSU also served up nine aces while the Aggies had zero with five service errors. The game's leading scorer was Crystal Whitten from Fort Hays who had eight kills and two aces; Whitten totaled 56 kills in the tournament.

Head Coach Mike Stephens was pleased with the tournament as a whole saying, "It was a great weekend of volleyball." He spoke of his team's performance adding, "The majority of the weekend we played with tremendous passion and fire. We staged a number of comebacks, but fell just short of set wins." Stephens sees this as an opportunity for improvement noting that they were able to identify some areas to focus on moving forward.

Fort Hays finished 4-0 in the tournament with UTPB and UCCS finishing 3-1 each; Missouri Southern went 2-2, and NWOSU and Panhandle both went winless for the weekend. The Aggies will take to the road this week to compete in a tournament hosted by Southwest Baptist in Bolivar, Mo. Sept. 9-10 with two matches each day. Friday they'll start off with Union College at 11:30 a.m. followed by Harding at 4:30 p.m.; Saturday's games include the University of Illinois Springfield at 9 a.m. and Southwest Baptist at 2 p.m. The team returns to the Oscar Williams Field House for a 6 p.m. matchup with Langston University on Monday, Sept. 12.