FULTON, Mo. - William Woods (8-1) recovered from a slightly out-of-sorts start on Wednesday night to take home a 3-1 win (22-25, 25-18, 25-14, 25-20) over cross-town foes Westminster College (1-3).
Luciana Paiva Pereira led the Owls offense with 13 kills and five block assists on the night, with
Kassidy Phillips (10 kills, 10 digs) and
Logan Finneran (15 assists, 15 digs) each adding a double-double.
Neither team was able to sustain a continued run in the opening half of the first set, with William Woods opening a 4-1 lead only to see Westminster battle back to a 10-9 scoreline halfway through.
The end of the first set saw both teams hit a rough patch, but the Bluejays were able to recover first, using a five-point run to reclaim the lead at 23-21. A kill by Paiva Pereira had a chance to stop the bleeding, but the hosts mustered a pair of kills from Kylie Hasselbacher to take the first set.
William Woods flipped the script to open the second set, blasting out to a 7-2 lead and extending the margin to 16-8 with back-to-back service aces by Lorenza Laguna and a block from Adams and Paiva Pereira.
Westminster tried to take advantage of a service error at 16-9, but Paiva Pereira emphatically slammed the door shut with another block assist with Adams followed by a kill assisted by
Rhakala Blackmon.
And as dominant as the second set start was by WWU, the third set was on another level as
Erin Treis set up camp at the service line and helped the Owls to nine straight points before Westminster could respond. Trees even capped the run with a service ace and a nifty kill on two.
The host Bluejays weren't quite ready to surrender, leading for portions of the fourth set and keeping pace up to 19-19, but the stamina of WWU prevailed as the Owls finished things off with a 6-1 run.
Woods finished the match with a .267 hitting percentage, holding Westminster to a .086 pace overall, and the Owls recorded 14 total blocks to just three for WC.
The road swing continues for William Woods this weekend, as the Owls head to Springfield for the Evangel University Quad. First up for WWU is a 4:45 p.m. Friday match against York University.
