HOUSTON – Niara Hightower and Mia Delahoussaye combined for 18 kills Sunday afternoon as Bethune-Cookman Volleyball dropped a 3-2 thriller to Prairie View A&M in a Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) contest inside the Health & Physical Education Arena. The match was part of the SWAC Cluster #1 event held on the campus of Texas Southern.
 
BCU dropped the match on set scores of 28-26, 15-25, 25-23, 22-25, 12-15.
 
Bethune-Cookman (2-14, 2-3 SWAC) erased a 24-23 deficit in the opening set behind back-to-back kills from Mia Delahoussaye, bringing the Wildcats into the lead at 25-24. Janyah Henderson tied the set at 25-all for Prairie View A&M with a kill off the set of Leah Lawson. But in the end, Delahoussaye combined with teammates Kytal Price and Niara Hightower for kills late to spark BCU to the opening set win, 28-26.
 
Prairie View A&M (10-9, 5-0 SWAC) hit at a .204 clip in the second set. That allowed the Panthers to grab the 25-15 win and even the match at one set apiece.
 
In the third set, BCU was led by Elizabeth Phillips with five kills. Meanwhile, Hightower – the SWAC's leader in blocks on the season, produced two solo blocks, with eight digs coming from Essence Bell, to allow Bethune-Cookman a 25-23 hard-fought win.
 
After Prairie View grabbed the 25-22 win in the fourth set, the match would move to a fifth-set decider.
 
A Price block at the net provided the Cats with an 8-6 lead at the changeover in the final frame.
 
But it would be consecutive set errors charged to the Maroon and Gold that pushed PVAMU back in front at 9-8. A Kylee Owens kill moved the lead to two points, before a service error from the Panthers pulled BCU to within 10-9. Another Hightower block evened the set at 11-11.
 
An Owens kill followed by a BCU attack error led the Cats to call a timeout trailing 13-11.
 
Another Owns kill – one of her four in the final set, was followed by one of BCU's five attack errors in the set to give the Panthers the 15-12 set- and match-win.
 
Prairie View used 24 kills from Owens to lead all players in the match, followed in double-figures for kills by Bailee Hewitt with 11. Lawson provided a match-high 41 assists for the Panthers, while Owens completed her double-double with 21 digs in a defensive effort.
 
For BCU, Delahoussaye registered 10 kills to lead all Wildcats in that category. Price recorded nine kills of her own in the contest. Madison Coates led the Cats with a team-high 17 assists. The defense was headlined by Bell with a match-high 26. Hightower concluded the match with four blocks.
 
Bethune-Cookman returns to action Sunday evening in the second match of the day for the Maroon and Gold when the Wildcats face Southern (La.) at 6 p.m. ET.
 
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