The Wright State volleyball team improved to 5-0 in the spring season with a 3-1 road victory at Oakland on Monday night, winning the opening two sets before dropping a marathon third set and wrapping the night up in the fourth set.
 
Wright State and Oakland will turn around and face each other again on Tuesday as part of the Horizon League's scheduling model playing the same opponent at the same site on back-to-back days. Tuesday's match is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET and will be streamed on ESPN+.
 
The Raiders won the opening set 25-17 and took the second set 25-20 before Oakland won the third set, 38-36. Wright State bounced back and ended things with a 25-21 fourth set victory.
 
Monday's third set setback was the first dropped set of the season for the Raiders, who opened the season with 14 straight set wins on the backs of four sweeps and the 2-0 lead on Monday. But if you're going to lose a set, you might as well get your reps in, and Wright State sure did that. The Raiders and Golden Grizzlies had 13 tied scores in the third set alone before Oakland won the set 38-36.
 
The Raiders finished the night with a .185 hitting percentage as a team, including a .333 mark in the opening set when they recorded 16 kills and only three errors. Teddie Sauer paced Wright State with 19 kills, while Megan Alders had 15 of her own, including 10 in the first two sets, and Celia Powers also had 10 kills. Wright State finished with 13 blocks to Oakland's five, with Sauer's seven leading the way, followed by Alders and Nyssa Baker with five each.
 
Lainey Stephenson passed out 39 of the Raiders' 52 assists, while it was a team effort defensively, with Jenna Story (27), Powers (21) and Stephenson (20) leading the way as Wright State finished with 101 digs in the win.
 
Set 1
Wright State jumped out to a 7-2 advantage behind kills from Alders and Sauer before Oakland pulled back to within one at 7-6 and the teams traded points. The Raiders got some breathing room with five straight points to move to 20-14 thanks to a pair of kills from Alders and also from Powers before closing out the set with a kill from Stephenson and an Oakland attacking error for a 25-17.
 
Set 2
Back-and-forth to start the set, the Raiders were able to take control by rolling off a stretch where they won eight of 10 points, keyed by kills from Stephenson, Baker and Sam Wolf, along with four Oakland attacking errors. Wright State had another six-point run late in the set to get to 22-16 behind kills from Sauer and Alders before Oakland battled back to 22-20 with a quick run of its own. The Raiders closed out the set with two Oakland errors and a Sauer kill to take the set 25-20.
 
Set 3
The Raiders scored the first eight points of the set and were up 10-1 before Oakland made its comeback push. The Golden Grizzlies battled all the way back to be down two at 24-22 with the Raiders at set and match point before rolling off two straight kills to tie things at 24. The set had 13 more ties after that point, with Oakland finally taking the set at 38-36 thanks to a kill and then a Wright State attacking error to end the set.
 
Set 4
Wright State trailed early in the set at 10-6 before taking six of the next seven points behind a service ace from Ellee Ruskaup and a pair of kills and an ace of her own from Sauer. The Raiders used another run, this time of 7-1, to push out to a 22-15 advantage thanks to two kills each from Powers and Alders and a kill apiece from Callie Martin and Story. Oakland would not go down without a final fight, tallying six of the next eight points to pull to 24-21 before a service error ended the night and gave the Raiders the win.