TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (November 6, 2016) – North Carolina A&T's spot in the MEAC Volleyball Championship Tournament is solidified for the fourth straight season. Now, so is their seeding in that tournament. N.C. A&T lost on the road to Florida A&M 3-1 (11-25, 25-22, 18-25, 21-25) at the Al Lawson Center on Sunday afternoon. The loss dropped the Aggies back to 9-13 overall and 6-3 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference southern division.

The Bethune-Cookman Wildcats defeated North Carolina Central on Sunday afternoon to improve to 7-3 in the south and by virtue of losing fewer sets than N.C. A&T in conference play – 10 vs. 14 – the Wildcats will claim the No. 2 seed. N.C. A&T still has one conference match remaining, a 7:30 p.m., tilt against rival NCCU at Moore Gymnasium on Friday, Nov. 11. Despite the outcome, the Aggies will be the No. 3 seed out of the south. 

“It was a really tough weekend for us. I felt like we could have played better, but we were still in a position to compete which was good,” said head coach Hal Clifton.  “Our defense today struggled a bit, but we couldn't get our offense going consistently.  I am proud of the fact that we competed hard and battled every set.”

The Aggies found their rhythm halfway through the second set. After trailing 11-6, Clifton called a timeout. The Aggies outscored the Rattlers 6-3 after the timeout which was culminated by a Kayla Finnerty service ace for N.C. A&T. The Rattlers (15-11, 10-0 MEAC) tried to pull away again with two kills and an attack error by the Aggies to take a 19-16 lead.

It led Clifton to call another timeout. Once again, his team responded to his words. N.C. A&T eventually fought their way into the lead at 23-22 on a Samara Brown kill. The Rattlers responded with a timeout, but this time it didn't work.  Back-to-back block assists from Jasmine Lindor and Liz Martino and Lindor and Brown tied the set at 1. It was a team effort to get the set with Brown leading the way with three kills followed by Te'Borah Hawkins-Hollingsworth with two. 

N.C. A&T had their best offensive set in the fourth. They had a hitting percentage of .240 as Brown finished with six kills in the set, her best of the match. Unfortunately, the Rattlers built a 22-17 lead late in the set. The Aggies did put together a 4-1 run capped off by a Brown service ace to get to within 23-21. A kill and a service ace by the Rattlers, however, helped them finish their southern division season undefeated. Errors were problematic for the Aggies against Florida A&M as they totaled 26 hitting errors, 11 receiving errors and six ball handling errors.

Brown led the Aggies with 15 kills and nine digs. Defensively, the Aggies came away with 10 team blocks. Alyssa Pitt had four total blocks, Hawkins-Hollingsworth had three total blocks and Lindor led the way with five total blocks, all block assists.

“We will regroup and get prepared for Central this week.  We can finish second in our division and that's still a good thing.  We want to honor our seniors with a win,” said Clifton.