For the second consecutive time, Texas Tech pushed the OU volleyball team to the brink and once again, the Sooners prevailed.

OU won the final two sets on its way to a five set victory (22-25, 25-21, 21-25, 25-10, 15-12) Saturday afternoon at McCasland Field House.

As a result, the Sooners (7-6, 3-2 Big 12) snapped a two-match losing streak and swept the season series against Texas Tech (5-10, 0-4 Big 12), which they defeated 3-2 two weeks ago after Hurricane Ike forced a last-minute scheduling change which landed OU a spot in the Red Raider Round Up in Lubbock, Texas.

Despite the Red Raiders failing to secure their first win in conference play, they gave the Sooners all they could handle from the opening serve, which is par for the course in a matchup that has gone to five sets in four of the last seven meetings.

“It felt good to be back into the win column,” OU head coach Santiago Restrepo said. “[Texas Tech] is a very good team. They always play us tough and today was no exception.”

Also par for the course was OU’s usual come-from-behind victory after dropping the opening set – a trend that continued Saturday. The Sooners were plagued by mental mistakes early on and let a 9-6 lead slip away, as Texas Tech went on a 9-2 run that OU couldn’t recover from.

Still, the first set laid the groundwork for the Sooners offensive attack for the afternoon, as freshman right side hitter Suzy Boulavsky piled up five kills in the opening frame.

The Red Raiders struggled to adjust to Boulavsky’s southpaw skill set, as she matched her season-high mark of 13 kills.

OU struck back in the second set, knotting the action at one set a piece while capitalizing off several errors by the Red Raiders.

The Sooners led for the majority of the set and were more efficient in their attack as Texas Tech piled up a total of 14 errors in the second frame, five of which came on serves. On the afternoon, the Red Raiders committed 17 service errors to the Sooners’ nine.

Defensively, the Sooners stifled the Red Raiders for the duration of the match, holding them to .176 hitting overall – well below Tech’s season average of .214.

Senior libero Lacy Barnes and freshman setter Brianne Barker led the Sooner defense — which out-dug and out-blocked the Red Raiders — with 15 digs a piece.

Junior outside hitter Bridget Laplante and freshman outside hitter Caitlin Higgins added 13 digs each, while sophomore middle blocker Christy Disarro tallied four blocks on the day.

Texas Tech took the third set, which saw seven ties and a pair of lead changes. With the momentum alternating early on, the Red Raiders established a small cushion mid-way through the action and posted a match-high 17 kills for the set.

Despite OU’s home court advantage, Texas Tech had the near-400 Sooner faithful in attendance checkmated through three sets, largely due to the nonstop vocal support of the eight women on its bench.

As unorthodox as the notion of eight people out-cheering 400 fans in Norman may be, the players didn’t think much of Tech’s extra boost in support.

“We heard [Texas Tech] in the locker room before the game started and they sounded really excited to come play us,” redshirt sophomore middle blocker Francie Ekwerekwu said. “That didn’t matter because we were going to be just as excited, if not more.”

Ekwerekwu and the Sooners furthered their tune-out of the rowdy Tech bench and pieced together two of their more impressive sets of the season to close out the match.

The closest the Red Raiders came to edging the Sooners in the fourth set was when they were tied 1-1. From that point on, the Sooners went on numerous three and four-point runs and opened up a lead as large as 15 and hit .409 on the set.

The crowd responded to the Sooners’ tenacity, which carried over into the match’s final frame, where the Sooners piled on 10 of their 15 points by way of kill – all of which were assisted by Barker, who finished with 47 on the afternoon.

“This crowd just showed us that they’re behind our back,” Ekwerekwu said. “It just shows we have a lot of character on our team and that we’re not going to give up. We’re going to win.”

OU hosts the third-ranked Longhorns on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in McCasland Field House. The match will be broadcasted nationally on ESPNU and the first 250 fans in attendance will receive an OU stadium cup and free popcorn and drinks will be available to students with a valid ID.