Sophomore Morgan Ray shattered her season high of kills with 21 in a 3-1 Gulf South Conference victory against Shorter on Saturday.

The win wraps up a grueling 10 match road stretch for West Alabama (7-3, 1-1) as well as delivers first year head volleyball coach Jordan Lay’s first GSC victory. The loss drops Shorter (3-4, 0-2) to a four match losing streak.

“It was a good weekend overall for us,” said UWA head volleyball coach Jordan Lay.

“We faced some really good conference teams, but in the end our hard work paid off. Finishing 1-1 on the weekend starts us off second in the conference and that shows the rest of the conference what we are capable of against other GSC opponents.”

The Tigers took set one 25-21, but fell behind 25-9 in set two. They recovered with 25-22 and 25-23 scores in the final two sets.

Junior Sadie Beam followed Ray in kills with her season high of 13 kills. Beam is now the fourth Tiger to record double digit kills in a single match this season. Ray now leads the team with 114 kills on the year.

The Tigers will host the current leader of the GSC, Valdosta State, in the season home opener on Tuesday. The match is set for 7 p.m. in Pruitt Hall.

“We are excited to finally play at home,” said Lay. “We have had a lot of hype for our first home match and that’s had the girls more than ready to play. It will be great to finally play in front of a crowd in our favor for the first time this season.”