MARSHALL, Texas – After splitting their two matches at home, the East Texas Baptist University volleyball team will head on the road for an invitational in Sherman, Texas, at Austin College. They will take on four schools in non-conference matches, including two American Southwest Conference opponents in Howard Payne University and Sul Ross State University while playing Linfield College and host school Austin College.
ETBU hosted their first home matches of the season where they fell to Wiley College 25-16, 25-20, and 28-26 in in the first match of the night before returning to win the second match against Centenary College in three straight sets by scores of 25-23, 25-17, and 25-19. In the first match,
Julia De Los Santos collect 15 digs while
Bailey Byas had a team-leading eight kills. Against Centenary,
Sydney Lopez (20 kills, 17 digs) and
Elyse Shaw (26 assists, 11 digs) posted double-doubles.
Through six matches, Lopez leads the team in kills with 69. Shaw is the team's assist leader with 122 while De Los Santos has 89 digs and
Annie Harris has provided16 blocks to lead ETBU in their respective categories.
ETBU will now turn their attention to the four schools for the upcoming invitational. This will be ETBU's first match all-time against Linfield. Linfield is undefeated at 4-0 having dropped one set this season. Taylor Peterson leads the Wildcats with 28 kills while Mattie Kelly has the lead in assists at 102. Defensively, Taylor Souza has 60 digs.
Including last season's 3-1 victory, ETBU holds a 12-2 margin over HPU. The Yellow Jackets have played one match so far this year, which they fell in three sets to Texas Lutheran.
ETBU won their last meeting against AC in three sets back in 2015, which puts them 6-8 all-time against the Roos. This year, AC is 3-1 coming off wins against Concordia and Millsaps College.
The Tigers are 20-0 all-time against the Lobos of SRSU, including last season's 3-0 victory. The Lobos will play their first games of the season this weekend.
ETBU plays Linfield at 12:00 PM and HPU at 6:00 PM on Friday while their games against AC and SRSU take place on Saturday at 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM respectively.
