ADA, Okla. - The Northwestern Lady Rangers Volleyball team traveled to Ada this Tuesday evening to start their conference play. They faced East Central University Tigers and fought until the last minute but could not succeed and lost 2-3.
 
At the beginning of the first set, the Lady Rangers and Tigers fought point for point until 5:5 and then The Tigers went on a 6-1 run. The score was 11:6 with Tigers being up. The Rangers kept fighting and brought their lead down to three points with a score of 11:14. From then on, The Rangers shrunk the Tigers' lead to one point with a score of 23:24 but it wasn't enough to win and The Tigers won the first set with a score of 25:23.
 
The second set of the game was really close. Both teams were battling for their points. The Tigers struck first with a kill, but Cameryn Barclay answered right back to start the set 1:1. The set was intense and close. The Rangers trailed most of the set by a couple points until they tied it at 18:18 and took over the lead for the first time 19:18. The Tigers were forced to take a timeout when they got down by two points with a score of 20:22. The timeout did not help The Tigers and The Rangers scored three more points to win the set 25:20 and tie the game 1-1.
 
The third set did not start very well for The Lady Rangers as The Tigers started off with a 4-1 run. The Rangers came back to a one-point deficit but then The Tigers went on a 7-0 run and now The Rangers are down by eight points with a score of 3:11. Unfortunately, The Rangers could not recover and lost the third set 16:25. The Tigers were back to leading the game 2-1.
 
The Rangers started the fourth set hot 5:1 and at one point even had a five-point lead 7:2. The Tigers tied the score at 12:12 right after their timeout. That didn't stop The Rangers from going on a 3-0 run and reaching the highest lead of the game of six points at the score of 20:14.
 
To start off the fifth set, The Lady Rangers struck first with three points and that forced The Tigers to take a timeout. The Tigers then scored two points until The Lady Rangers went on a 4-0 run to have a lead of six points 8:2. The Tigers then had a big comeback and tied the game at 10:10. The Rangers then had an intense  rest of the game, but unfortunately did not succeed and lost the set 15:12. The Tigers won the game 3-2.

Leaders for The Rangers were Tess De Zanet with 14 kills, three aces and 15 digs. Barclay added 12 kills, Ece Ozdemir 10 kills and 18 digs. Mikayla White had 29 assists and 15 digs. Jadyn Padilla added 16 digs.

The Rangers will be back in action at 5:00 p.m. this Friday on Sept. 19 in Edmond, where they face University of Central Oklahoma.

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