Photo by Kami Wood
Chickasha, Okla. – The Tigers traveled down to Oklahoma for a pair of Sooner Athletic Conference matchups over the weekend. On Friday, they faced Mid-America Christian University and on Saturday they clashed with University of Science and Arts Oklahoma. The Tigers were a little shorthanded due to injuries but they were determined not to let that stop them.
Friday's match against MACU got off to a thrilling start as each team would not go away easily. Central ended up dropping the set 25-27 and looked to rebound in the next set to even the match. Unfortunately, the Tigers were unable to get any momentum going and dropped the next two sets 12-25, and 13-25 to lose the match in straight sets.

The Tigers looked to bounce back on Saturday when facing Science and Arts in Chickasha. The Tigers found themselves in an early hole down 8-15 in the first set but stormed back to win the set 25-21. Central dropped the second set 19-25 and the match was now even at 1-1. The third set was all Central as they would go on to win it 25-21 and taking a 2-1 advantage in the match. The Tigers looked out of sync in the fourth set as they could not get any good attacking opportunities and would drop the fourth set 10-25. This would set up a 5^th and final set to 15 points to determine the winner of the match. The Tigers would drop the fifth set 8-15 to lose the match in heartbreaking fashion.

Tiger Leaders
Kills: Vanatta (26)
Digs: Vanatta (33)
Assists: Smith (21)
Blocks: Sampsell (2)
Aces: Myers (7)

Coach Quote
"It was good to see us compete this weekend. MACU and USAO are good teams that are working hard in our conference. We have had a tough time on the road this year. I still believe our team has the pieces we need to be successful on the court and we have done so much growth and work this season that it is tough to lose matches. I really felt we had a good chance to win on Saturday but we had a tough time executing our plan and schemes.
It's been a long first half of the season with 12 of our first 15 matches on the road including our next two matches with JBU and OCU. We are going to continue to work hard on our fundamentals and give ourselves a chance to win. It has been good to see that we are performing well on defense and over our next 15 matches I believe we will be a very tough team for people to play." – Coach Rick Hughes

Next Up
The Tigers get a bit of a break as their next set of games are September 22^nd and 23^rd as they stay on the road, traveling to John Brown University and Oklahoma City University for a pair of Sooner Athletic Conference matchups.