AUSTIN, Texas – In the second day of back-to-back road contests, the Lady Jackets (1-6) headed to Austin to face off against Concordia University (5-5.) Howard Payne has been coming off of some strong late sets lately and were looking to use that momentum to gain a victory today. 

After dropping the first two sets, the Lady Jackets continued their late match surges by taking the final three sets from the Tornados and cruising to the 3-2 victory. It was a back and forth game from the start and HPU showed their resilience by getting the win in five sets (23-25, 22-25, 25-18, 25-20, 17-15.) 

The two teams exchanged points in the first set before a couple of attack errors and a service error let Concordia pull away towards the end. The Tornados finished the set up 25-23 despite Kailey Doering leading all players with a .571 attack percentage.  

The score was all notched up at 17 apiece before Concordia started to pull away, finishing the set up 25-22. After trailing 14-17, the Lady Jackets showed some fight and rallied back to take the third set 25-18 and never looked back. HPU took the final two sets 25-20, 17-15 to stun their hosts and gain their first conference win of the season. 

The Jackets took advantage of 44 attack errors and led the game in blocks (17.5 to four) and attack percentage (.128.) They were led by a strong all around performance from Zhartezia Bradley who had 15 blocks, 10 kills and 20 points in the victory. 

Kailey Doering finished the game with 17 kills and led all players with a .375 attack percentage. Cheyanne Lovelady also led all players with 44 assists (a career high) while Analisa Anzaldua led all players with 37 digs. 

Next up for Howard Payne is a home contest at Brownwood Coliseum. They will play host to Arlington Baptist College on Tuesday, September 20th at 5:oo p.m. Fans can follow along on Twitter @HPUVBall and Live Video will be available at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/hpu/