EDMOND, Okla. (September 18, 2025) – The opening day of the Lone Star Conference Challenge hosted by Oklahoma Christian saw the host Eagles sweep the UT Permian Basin volleyball team 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-22) on Thursday night at the Payne Athletic Center.

UTPB falls to 2-7 overall while OC improves to 7-1. Oklahoma Christian comes into the new season preseason ranked seventh in the Lone Star Conference - the program's highest ever LSC preseason ranking. The top-eight bidding comes after the Eagles reached the LSC Tournament as the seven seed after claiming an NCAA DII-best 20-7 record with a 9-7 conference stand last season. Thursday night's match was a drastic change from the wild 3-2 (25-21, 31-29, 21-25, 11-25, 15-10) win for the Falcons over the Eagles during the final week of the regular season last year in Edmond.

This time around, Lauren Demuth led UTPB with 11 kills on a .417 attack percentage. She was followed by Nickilah Whatley with nine kills, Makenna Grimes with six and Amyah Collins with five. Kierra Freeman recorded her third double-double in a row with 22 assists and 12 digs.

Late in the opening set, UTPB tied it at 23-23 after a service error and an attack error by OC, marking the first tie since the set was 4-4. However, OC responded to take the first set on a kill by Camryn McGough and a bad set by the Falcons.

UTPB's only lead in the opening set was 1-0 while OC's lead never grew to greater than four points. The two teams combined for eight service errors in the first set, including five by the Eagles.

In the second set, OC used an 8-3 run to take a 21-14 lead on another bad set by UTPB. In addition, the Eagles hit .353 percent in the opening set and .333 percent in the second.

In the third set, UTPB led 15-12 after a kill by Collins and 17-15 after a service ace by Isabel Rodriguez. However, tied at 19-19 after a block assist by Sydney Bradley and Precious Johnson, OC won the next three points on a kill followed by back-to-back blocks.

After a UTPB timeout, Whatley finished off back-to-back kills to make it just a 22-21 deficit, but a service error by the Falcons' Andrea Urzua gave it back to the Eagles, who took advantage with a service ace by Sophie Mae Smith to get it to match point. An attack error by Whatley two points later ended the match.

UTPB committed seven attack errors in each of the final two sets, hitting below .200 percent in both sets.

For OC, all-time kills leader Annie Davis led the match with 15 kills while OC's single-season kills leader, Chloe Jones, added 10 kills. Jones was the conference's 2024 Co-Freshman of the Year and Second Team selection after delivering a single-season program record 376 kills while also finishing second on the team with 386 digs. In addition, the Eagles' current second second-place all-time assists leader, Sophia Mae Smith, finished with 23 assists.

OC was coming off a match in which it  hit.416 in a 3-0 win against Dominican in its final match of the Redwood Coast Volleyball Classic. It was the Eagles' best hitting percentage in over two years. Also in that match, Chloe Jones hit a staggering .700 as she claimed seven kills on 10 total attacks without a single error, making it the best attack percentage from an OC outside hitter on a minimum of 10 total attacks in program history.

UTPB's Head Coach CJ Allard said, "From the perspective of not totally beating ourselves, we took a great step this evening in limiting our unforced errors, but Oklahoma Christian is an experienced team who has the feeling of a ton of wins early this season. We're still in desperate need of people who 'want the ball' in every game. Hopefully we can take that step tomorrow against another strong squad in Lubbock Christian."

UTPB committed 18 attack errors against the Eagles, its third-lowest total of the season.

The Falcons wrap up their stay at the Lone Star Conference Challenge tomorrow (Sept. 19) against Lubbock Christian University with first serve again slated for 6 p.m. Last season the Falcons swept the Lady Chaparrals 3-0 (25-23, 25-15, 25-12) during the LSC Crossover in Laredo, Texas.