Friday night the Washburn Lady Blues volleyball team came riding into town like the four horsemen laying waste to their opponents.

During warmups, the contrast between the Bearcats of Southwestern Baptist (9-18) to Washburn (26-2) became apparent as athletes like Breanna Lewis, junior rightside hitter and Jessica Fey, sophomore middle/rightside hitter took practice.

While Lewis, standing at 6-foot 5-inches and Fey at 6-foot tall spiked the ball with downward force over the net, Southwestern Baptist mostly ranging in the 5-foot 6-inch range, looked like a team of children in comparison.

The Bearcats though did give a good accounting of themselves as they pushed Washburn throughout each of the sets. Keeping the score close early on, it wouldn’t be until halfway through the first set that the Lady Blues would pull away with a six point run that opened up the lead. The Bearcats then committed several key errors that allowed Washburn to open up the lead and finish up the set 25-11.

If the first set was a clinic in how a good team plays, the second set was how a good team can at times, lose its focus. The Bearcats came out of the set break on fire as they scored back and forth with the Lady Blues leading at three different points throughout the set.

After a timeout, Washburn, then down 8-4 at that point, came out with a focus that saw then score two points immediately as they closed the gap and eventually took the lead for good, winning the set 25-16.

The third set started and ended up at the same point with Washburn opening up with a 4-1 lead and then exchanging points before going on successive runs of 5 and 7 points en route to a 25-16 set win and a 3-0 sweep of SBU.

The Lady Blues continue the road tour 6 p.m. Nov. 6 at Pittsburg State University.

Lady Blues standouts:

-Breanna Lewis 9 kills on 16 total attacks

-Amanda Guess led the way in assists with 18

-Hillary Hughes and Guess each scored 11 digs as well to pace the Lady Blues