EAST GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T is not far removed from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference membership.
Therefore, the intensity, the passion and the emotion are still there when the Aggies play former MEAC rivals. That was evident Friday night during the A&T volleyball team's 2022 season opener at Moore Gymnasium against Coppin State of the MEAC.
The Aggies and the Eagles did battle for 153 minutes before the Eagles escaped with a 3-2 win (25-12, 25-23, 20-25, 21-25, 16-14). Hannah Howell (6-foot, SO, OH, St. Louis Park, Minn.) finished with a career-high 16 kills. She also recorded her second career double-double as she added 17 digs to her totals.
"There's going to be matches where people are excited to play us, and we have to be up to match that energy," said A&T coach Hal Clifton. "There are matches where we will be really excited to play other teams and continue that same energy. But we started really slow. We didn't handle the ball very well. We never got into a flow at all.
I feel like we have opportunities to keep getting better. We fought when we were down two sets. I felt we gave the second set away a little bit towards the end. But the fact is that we came back, and we forced a fifth set and got it to 14 all."
The first set did not last long for a match that lasted 2 ½ hours. Coppin (1-0) played near flawless volleyball, as they scored the first six points of the match and ended Set No. 1 with a .478 hitting percentage.
A&T played better in the second set, overcoming a -.040 hitting percentage in the first. The Aggies even had a 22-21 lead in the second. But Coppin closed on a 4-1 run to claim a 2-0 lead in the match. But a funny thing happened as Coppin tried to sweep the Aggies. A&T found some weak spots in the Eagles defense, the Aggies played better defensively at the net and the freshman duo from last season – Naiya Sawtelle (6-foot, SO, OH, Stuart, Fla.) and Howell – caught fire.
A 3-0 run that included a kill from Sawtelle and back-to-back kills from Howell gave the Aggies a 17-14 lead in the third. Minutes later, the Eagles cut the lead to two, 19-17, on Miajavon Williams kill. But a Coppin service error, another kill from Howell and a block assist from Mallory Porcher (6-0, SR, MB, Orlando, Fla.) and Chiara Napoli (6-0, FR, S, Saint-Raphael, France) gave the Aggies a 22-17 lead.
A Geraldyn Palacios kill cut the Aggies lead to four before the Aggies scored two straight points to earn set point. Coppin's Yaniris Miller-Green's attack error eventually gave the Aggies the third set. After avoiding the sweep, the Aggies went to work on forcing a fifth set.
Porcher put the Aggies ahead 21-19 in the fourth with a kill, but the Eagles scored the next two points to tie the set. But Howell posted a kill, then a service ace before the Aggies benefited from a Coppin attack error to regain control of the set at 24-21. Porcher and Sawtelle ended the set and ignited an enthusiastic Moore Gym crowd as they teamed to block a Coleman attack to force a fifth and final set.
The final set saw Coppin take set and match point at 14-11 on a Howell attack error. But like they had done all night, the Aggies fought back. A Maya Johnson (6-0, SO, MB, Austin Texas) kill, a Napoli ace and a kill from Liselotte Spoormakers (6-0, GR, RS, De Mortel, Netherlands) helped the Aggies tie the set at 14.
But back-to-back kills from Miller-Green earned the Eagles the win. Four Eagles had double-figure kills, led by Coleman's 18. She also finished with 10 digs.
Sawtelle added 11 kills and seven digs for the Aggies. Porcher finished with four kills and six total blocks, including one solo. Spoormakers finished with seven kills and five block assists in her Aggies debut. Johnson also had seven kills and five block assists.
"Everybody was nervous in the first match," said Howell. "Once we got over that, we started playing with them, playing hard and together. It was just the little things in the end. We lost by two points, and you can think of any two points down the line that you can change something."
