For the past ten days the Wayland Baptist volleyball team has been focusing on Tuesday night's match at Lubbock Christian University. First, though, the Pioneers needed to take care of a little business at home, and they did it in grand fashion, defeating Oklahoma Baptist and St. Gregory's in straight sets over the weekend.

The WBU netters took care of OBU, 25-19, 25-12, 25-21, in a match that took 95 minutes on Friday evening. Saturday afternoon's contest against St. Gregory's was even quicker, wrapping up in just under 45 minutes of actual playing time.

"We knew going into the weekend that everybody was going to get a lot of playing time," said Coach Jim Giacomazzi following his team's 25-7, 25-6, 25-13 victory over SGU. "The last time we played these two teams in Oklahoma it took us four sets. This time we won easily, and I saw a lot of improvement.

"Our mistakes were minimal, especially today. We wanted to try and limit our hitting errors, to concentrate on choosing where the hits were going, and I think we did a good job of that. What we did today is a reflection of what we need to do on Tuesday at LCU."

In the match against St. Greg's, the Pioneers made just nine attack errors and had a hitting percentage of .397. Freshman Kimberli Harger had 12 kills without committing an error, Desiree Luevano put down six without an error, while Sabrina Davis also recorded six kills. Anika Voigt dished out 36 assists.

Defensively, Jennifer Wyatt provided a big presence at the net, registering six blocks. Bethany Lewis had a team-high nine digs, followed by Anika Voigt with eight and Luevano with seven. The Wayland women held SGU to a negative hitting percentage (-.120).

The Pioneers had nine service aces in the match with Luevano and Wyatt getting three each, and senior Hailey Clark serving up a pair.

Against the Lady Bison from OBU, Luevano had an impressive night, recording a double-double with 14 kills and 12 digs. In the second set alone, Luevano recorded seven of the Pioneers' 11 successful attacks.

Harger had a team-high 20 digs, while Voigt handed out 30 assists and had 15 digs.

Prior to the match on Friday, WBU honored its seniors, Clark and Lewis. Clark finished the evening with eight kills and a block, while Lewis recorded 17 digs and a service ace.

The Pioneers, 23-6 on the season, are currently tied with John Brown for second place in the Sooner Athletic Conference with a 10-3 mark. JBU has the tie-breaker advantage, so what Giacomazzi's team is playing for on Tuesday, besides the satisfaction of beating LCU, is the third place seed in the SAC Tournament, which begins on Thursday in Oklahoma City.

"We want to stay away from that fourth seed, which would put us on LCU's side of the bracket."

The Lady Chaps secured the conference regular season title with a three-game sweep of Oklahoma Baptist on Saturday.

Tuesday night's showdown begins at 7 p.m. in LCU's Rip Griffin Arena.