LONGVIEW, Texas - On a day that saw the LeTourneau University volleyball team honor three seniors in between matches, LETU would bounce back from a three-set loss to Centenary College to earn a three-set sweep of Jarvis Christian College at Solheim Arena in Longview, Texas on Friday, October 6th. 

Scores of the match against Centenary would be 25-20, 25-21, and 25-19 in favor of the Ladies while the YellowJackets picked up a 25-19, 25-14, 25-15 victory over the Bulldogs in the nightcap. 

In the first match against Centenary College, a sloppy first set would get things started with both teams needing to shake out some early match jitters before settling in. Following back and forth play that saw three ties in the first 10 points of the match, Centenary would take the lead at 6-5 and hold onto the lead and never relinquish it while building a lead of as many as eight at 20-12. A furious late rally by the YellowJackets would close the gap to 23-19 before the Ladies managed to take two of the final three points of the set to take a 1-0 set lead. 

The largest lead of set two would come in crunch time as neither team would be able to pull away from the other with multiple lead changes happening all the way up to a 19-19 and 20-20 tie late in the set. Following a timeout by Centenary after LETU took a 20-19 lead, the Ladies would close out the set on a 6-1 run and earn a 25-21 set win and go up two sets to none with control of the match in their hands. 

Feeling the pressure of having their backs against the wall, LETU never would be able to gain control of the third set as Centenary would take a 7-3 lead and force a YellowJacket timout before extending their lead to 13-6. Five straight points by LETU would pull the set back to within two at 13-11, but it would be to no avail as the Centenary lead would manage to hover between two and five points throughout the rest of the set with the Ladies eventually securing a 25-19 set win. 

A team-high 12 kills by Savanna Stutts would go along with four blocks for the senior while Korissa White had 18 assists. Junior Liz Williams (20) and freshman Hailey Matthews (15) led the team in digs. 

Following senior night festivities before their match against the Bulldogs, the YellowJackets would play much looser than typical and allowed for emotions to be part of their game which would play to their advantage. Despite a slow start that saw Jarvis Christian tie the game at three and again at four, LETU would rattle off five straight points to open up a 9-5 lead and never look back in the first set as JCC would only get within two points once more in the set. Williams would be a big key to the rally by LeTourneau, as the YellowJackets would go on a 5-0 run with the junior at the service line. The set would eventually go to LETU by a score of 25-19. 

In set two, LeTourneau would once again use the serving abilities of Williams to open up the game, scoring six straight points to open up an 8-2 lead after seeing the set tied at 2-2. LETU would manage to hit .344 in the second set while earning a 25-14 set victory and start to feed off the crowd that was in full support of their YellowJackets. 

Set three would appear to be the closest of the three sets in the match as LETU would let a pesky Jarvis Christian team hang around until midway through the set. Trailing by a score of 9-7, LeTourneau would manage to tie the set at 10-10 on a White service ace before a Williams service ace would tie the match at 14-14. From that point forward, LETU would score six straight points to take a 20-14 lead and give up just one more point in the set while finishing the match on a 14-1 run. 

"We went into our match against Jarvis Christian differently than we have any other match this season and it paid off tonight" said head coach Ashley Tiernan in a post-game interview. "Senior night is always a big night no matter who the seniors are, and we were able to use our emotions to our advantage."

Elyse Wright led all players in the match with 14 kills while adding one block as Matthews would tack on seven kills and 15 digs. White had 20 kills while Cam Taylor had 16 and two service aces while the YellowJackets had a total of nine service aces in the match. 

A four-game road swing starts for LeTourneau on Wednesday, October 11th with the start of the second half of American Southwest Conference play at the University of Texas-Tyler. "It's always different the second time around in conference play because each team is going to go after each other's flaws" said Tiernan. "Volleyball is a game of mistakes and we have to find a way to not make as many mistakes which is our goal moving forward."

LETU will close out the season with 11 of their final 12 matches on the road, with the lone home game coming on Tuesday, October 17th against East Texas Baptist University.