BOURBONNAIS, Ill. -- Montana Tech's volleyball team dropped a five-set thriller to Olivet Nazarene, 27-25, 20-25, 21-25, 25-15, 19-17, in Friday's season-opening match at the Tiger Kickoff Invite despite double-digit kills from three Orediggers and a double-double from
Rhys Layton.
Layton, a senior setter, tallied 25 assists and 12 digs, both team-highs, while
Halle Moomaw,
Morgan Jones, and
Payton Treadwell all topped the 10-kill mark.
The Orediggers (0-1) started off slow, falling behind 14-9 in the opening set before storming back to tie the score at 15 apiece. The teams played back and forth to a 25-all tie before the host Tigers (1-0) won the final two points and the set.
Tech evened the tally behind four kills each from Jones, Moomaw, and Treadwell in the second set, and the Orediggers held ONU to a meager .132 hitting percentage in the third, relying on defense to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
It was Montana Tech that struggled to find the floor in the fourth, hitting just 6-for-26 in the fourth as the Tigers forced a deciding fifth set.
In the winner-take-all set, the Orediggers erased an early 3-0 deficit to bring the score to match point, 14-11. But three straight points from ONU leveled the score, and the Tigers' Naomi Monney-Hori and Sabrina Sanif put down back-to-back kills to clinch it for the home team.
Monney-Hori finished with a match-best 21 kills for Olivet Nazarene.
Moomaw added seven blocks to her 13 kills in the transfer's Montana Tech debut, while Jones, another transfer, hit .455 (12-for-22) in her first match with the program. Junior
Austin Long added a team-high four aces for Montana Tech, and sophomore
Ellie Reinertson chipped in 16 assists and five digs.
Montana Tech will look to rebound quickly with a pair of matches Saturday to conclude the Tiger Kickoff Classic. The Orediggers will take on Mount Marty at 8 a.m. MDT (9 a.m. Central) and Spring Arbor at noon, 1 p.m. Central.
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