McPherson, Kan. - The Tiger Women's Volleyball team began their 2026 campaign this past weekend at home hosting their own Tiger Invitational, playing 4 total games on the weekend against Paul Quinn College, Avila University, Baker University, and Hesston College.
The Tigers kicked things off against Paul Quinn on Friday morning and were swept in straight sets. The team showed some competitiveness and grit throughout the match but unfortunately made too many errors down the stretch while being out hit by a strong Paul Quinn team.
The Tigers batted Avila University later that evening and showed improvement from game one but would be swept by the Eagles. The team hit much better in this go around than against Paul Quinn earlier in the day but were unable to match the Eagles strong attack and hitting percentage of .253. The match concluded day one of the invitational and the team would look to regroup for another pair of games the next day.
On Saturday the Tigers played a very good Baker University team to begin their day and were swept. The Tigers were simply overpowered by a near perfect hitting performance from Baker as the Wildcats notched 42 kills to just 6 errors for a hitting performance of .462.
The Tigers took a one game break before wrapping up their opening weekend against Hesston College and would unfortunately face their fourth sweep of the weekend. The Tigers fought hard in the first set losing 25-21 and then played their best set of the weekend in set two, leading 23-20 late before Hesston stormed for 5 unanswered points to steal the set. the Larks kept their momentum going into the final set and completed the sweep with a 25-7 score.
The Tigers will look to make some adjustments and build on the positives in the contest against Hesston and roll into conference play this weekend at home against Wayland Baptist University on Friday at 6:00pm and Oklahoma Panhandle State University on Saturday at 1:00. The games will be streamed on the SAC Sports Network and Urban Edge Network.
