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The ladies opened the 2014 season by going 2-1 at the Pepperdine Asics Classic in Malibu this weekend. They lost to Nevada 3-0 on Friday in their first match but came back to beat South Alabama and Pepperdine on Saturday, both by 3-1 scores. Team Records: Nevada 2-1 Pepperdine 2-1 ORU 2-1 South Alabama 0-3 Nevada won the three-way tiebreaker to take home the team title. Pepperdine placed second, followed by the Golden Eagles and South Alabama. Without knowing what the tiebreakers were, I'm assuming Nevada won the title because of their win over ORU, and Pepperdine finished second because they beat Nevada and ORU didn't, so even though ORU beat Pepperdine, the second-place tiebreaker was based on the Nevada result for both teams. Freshman Laura Milos was the star in both wins, with 29 kills in each, and was named to the All-Tournament Team. She led all players with 63 kills and hit an impressive .324 on 136 kill attempts. And she was hardly one-dimensional, adding four service aces, 13 digs and four blocks in three matches. She's the first Golden Eagle since 2007 to post 20 or more kills in back-to-back matches. Along with Milos, freshmen Lucija Bojanjac, Shelby Cox and Maggie DiPronio made their ORU debuts and played well, contributing much to the team's success. Bojanjac moved in as the starting setter and averaged over 11 assists per set. Cox started all three matches at middle hitter/blocker, chipping in with 11 kills and five blocks. DiPronio was a jack-of-all-trades, coming off the bench to spark the Golden Eagles defensively with 22 total digs and on her serve. In the match against Pepperdine, ORU was already down a set and fell behind 11-7 in the second set before she took her turn at serve. She racked up four aces as part of a 7-0 run that turned the tide and gave the Golden Eagles momentum that carried them to the second-set win and a sweep of the next two sets for the 3-1 road victory. ORU next plays in another tournament, the Dr. Mary Jo Winn Invitational hosted by Missouri State in Springfield. The Golden Eagles open the tourney this Thursday (Sept. 4th) against the host Bears, then play Milwaukee on Friday, Sept. 5th and Western Kentucky and Incarnate Word on Saturday, Sept. 6th. Go Eagles!!