CONWAY, Ark. – Ever since going 1-3 at their opening weekend tournament in Ada, OH the Pirates have been cruising, winning their last 17 straight including this weekend’s matches against Birmingham-Southern, Hendrix, Rhodes and Colorado College. The Pirates are now 19-3 overall and sit at a perfect 10-0 in the conference and in sole position of first place.

The Pirates opened the crossover against Birmingham-Southern on Friday, starting off hot in game one with a .353 team hitting percentage. They used the momentum to cruise to a 3-0 victory (25-17, 25-21, 25-17).

Host school Hendrix was the next match-up for SU and the Pirates started off even hotter than before, posting a .467 hitting percentage as a team in the first game. Nine Pirates recorded kills enroute to the 3-0 win (25-16, 25-14, 25-21). Southwestern had ten service aces including four from senior Reese Cisneros.

Sunday saw the Pirates face off with Rhodes College and Colorado College who currently sits in third place in the conference. Things ran smoothly for SU against Rhodes with Southwestern once again winning in straight games 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-14). First-year Rachel Thibodeau had 11 kills in the match to lead the Pirates while senior Sam Lingamfelter recorded a team high 16 digs.

Against Colorado College, the Pirates captured games one and two 25-22 and 25-19, respectively, but narrowly dropped the third set of the match 23-25, the only game lost by the Pirates the entire weekend, to force a game four. Southwestern regroup and settled in to take the game 25-17 and match 3-1. Gentry led with 17 kills and 21 digs while sophomore Lindsay Thompson was close behind with 14 kills and Lingamfelter recorded 17 digs.

The Pirates will close out regular season conference action at Colorado College this coming weekend. They face Centre and Oglethorpe on Friday and DePauw and Austin on Saturday.