Emporia State found the perfect opponent to take out its frustration from Wednesday’s loss to Truman State.
Missouri Western has won just one game in the MIAA this season, and the Hornets didn’t have any plans of playing the victim of an upset twice in one week.
The seventh-ranked Hornets bounced back with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-19, 25-19) win Friday at Western.
The ESU hitters also bounced back after one of their worst performances of the season, hitting .353. Arica Shepard led the way with 18 kills and 13 digs. Shepard hit .471 and also moved into fifth place on the all-time career kills list in the MIAA.
Katelyn Schmidtberger added nine kills and six digs. Amy Byfield led the Hornets with 12 digs, and Ting Liu had a match-high 36 assists and added eight digs. Middle hitters Katelyn Kaiser and Brianne Boner both finished with seven kills and Kaiser led the team with four blocks.
In the first set, the two teams went back and fourth reaching ties at 3-3, 5-5 and again at 9-all.
ESU then scored seven of the next nine points to build a 16-11 advantage.
The Hornets then didn’t let the Griffons get any closer than three, as they cruised to a 25-19 win.
In the second set after again having the set tied at 3, ESU went on a 7-3 run to build a 10-4 lead. They scored six straight off the service of Liu to take a 16-6 advantage.
MWSU would cut the lead to four at 23-19, but wouldn’t get any closer in a 25-19 victory.
In the third set, ESU would score 11 of the first 16 points to build an early 11-5 lead. ESU would then lead by as much as 21-13 before the Griffons again rallied to cut the lead to 23-19.
ESU would score the final two points on the night to finish off the Griffons.
Emporia State (23-3, 10-2) won in straight sets for the 16th time this season. The Hornets play at Northwest Missouri tonight at 6 p.m.