Central Arkansas volleyball drops four-set match at North Alabama

FLORENCE, Ala. — Central Arkansas volleyball had North Alabama tied at 25 in the third set Saturday afternoon and a real shot at going up two sets to one.

The Lions got the next two points instead, then won the fourth set to finish off UCA 3-1 in a UAC match.

Final scores were 25-18, 21-25, 27-25 and 25-20.

That leaves the Bears at 2-12 on the year and 2-2 in the league. North Alabama is 13-4 and 3-1, so nobody’s going to call this a bad loss.

It’s still one UCA would like back, mostly because of how that third set went.

Down 4-3 early, the Bears went ahead 8-5 with help from a Tatelyn Brandsma kill and a block she shared with McKinzee Haas.

Greyson Button and Kennady Martindale came up with kills late, and UCA pulled even at 24 and again at 25.

That’s as close as it got.

Martindale keeps piling up kills

If there’s a bright spot, it’s Martindale. The redshirt freshman had 16 kills and hit .333.

Sixteen is her career high, and she’s now hit that mark three times in a week. At some point she’ll probably just go ahead and get 17.

She also had a block and finished with 16.5 points.

Ella Chaney had 15 kills and 15 digs for her fourth double-double of the season. She threw in three blocks too, one of them solo, and had 17 points.

Button had 11 kills on .333 hitting and two blocks.

Brandsma ran the offense with 27 assists and nine digs, and she put away three of her four swings. Olivia Kremer had 13 digs and two aces.

North Alabama just hit better. The Lions finished at .297 with 64 kills, while the Bears were at .239 with 53.

UCA had twice as many blocks, eight to four, which helped but didn’t fix it.

Second set was the high point

The second set was the Bears at their best. They ran off seven straight points to go up 17-8.

Haas was at the service line for six of those and ended her turn with an ace. Chaney and Button had kills in the run and teamed up on a block.

North Alabama came right back with six in a row to get within 17-14, but UCA closed it out 25-21.

The first set went the other direction. The Bears were up 6-2 after a few Martindale kills, two blocks and a Kremer ace.

A 9-1 run put the Lions ahead 11-7, and they stayed in front the rest of the way.

The fourth was more of the same. UCA fell behind 15-10, then got back within 16-14 on a Button kill and some North Alabama errors.

The Lions stretched it to 19-14, and the gap never got under three again.

The Bears have one more stop on this road trip. They play Tarleton State at 6 p.m. Thursday in Stephenville, Texas.