DURHAM, N.C. – North Carolina A&T won its 11th straight over rival North Carolina Central University (NCCU) with a 3-1 win (25-19, 25-22, 17-25, 25-10) Tuesday night at McDougald-McLendon Arena. It was the Aggies third straight win this season as they improved to 3-1.  

"It's always nice to get a win on the road and that it was Central, a big rival," A&T coach Hal Clifton said. "That's a solid win, and we're certainly happy that we were able to come out of here with a victory. I thought Central fought really hard."

Sophomore Hannah Howell (St. Louis Park, Minn.) set a new career-high for the second time this season as she ended the night with 17 kills. She also posted nine digs. Fellow sophomore Naiya Sawtelle (Stuart, Fla.) recorded a match-high 19 kills and added 13 digs for her 10th career double-double. She also recorded four service aces and a .316 hitting percentage.

"Hannah had a good match tonight offensively," Clifton said. "She was able to hit over their setter quite a bit, and she had fewer errors. 

I think she was on balls that she could get the kill on. She wasn't trying to force things too much."

A&T ran off eight straight points capped off by a block assist from Mallory Porcher (Orlando, Fla.) and Chiara Napoli (Saint-Raphael, France) to give the Aggies a 17-10 lead. NCCU (0-4) slowly chipped away at the Aggies advantage, dwindling the lead down to four, 22-18, on an Aggies attack error and an ace by Loren Johnson. But A&T outscored the Eagles 3-1, culminated by a Howell kill to win Set No. 1.

NCCU led the second set 10-8 before the Aggies rallied with a 6-1 run behind two Porcher kills to take a 14-11 lead. The Aggies gradually grew their lead to 18-13 on a Napoli ace. NCCU would not allow the Aggies to pull away, however. A Tori Wilson kill got the Eagles to within one, 22-21. But after an Abby Vacha attack error, a Napoli kill and a Sawtelle kill gave the Aggies the win in the second set to take a 2-0 lead in the match. 

The Eagles won the third set with a .333 hitting percentage. They maintained a lead throughout the set even though the Aggies cut their lead to two, 18-16, behind back-to-back kills from Sawtelle and Maya Johnson (Austin, Texas). 

But a 7-1 Eagles run forced a fourth set, where the Aggies were superb. They committed only one attack error on 30 total attacks. Then, with the Aggies leading 21-9, Howell scored the Aggies final four points on kills to secure the set and the match.  

Morgan Allen (Charlotte, N.C.) led the team with 18 digs and five assists. Addy Warfield (Winter Springs, Fla.) posted a team-high 21 assists with eight digs, and Napoli finished with 19 assists, seven kills, four digs and five blocks, including one solo. Porcher added five blocks, including one solo, three kills and three digs.