GREENSBORO – The North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University volleyball team will be well tested when it enters Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) conference play next week.
The Aggies lost their fourth straight match on Friday, falling in five sets to High Point University (25-16, 22-25, 25-22, 25-27, 16-14) at the Millis Athletic and Convocation Center. Their losing streak should come with some context, though, as they lost two highly competitive home matches to excellent teams such as UNC Greensboro and Davidson.
The Aggies also lost to an ACC school in Wake Forest on Thursday, the same Wake Forest team that lost to Davidson in four sets earlier this month. On Friday, they faced an HPU Panthers team that beat UConn and Liberty and lost five sets to national power Penn State. On the upside, the Aggies have wins over Appalachian State and Furman. So, when they start CAA play on Friday, Sept. 25, at Northeastern, the Aggies will enter the competition well tested.
"Really tough match tonight," said A&T head coach
Hal Clifton. "I thought we put together one of the better matches of the season but just came up short. We had a number of players step up and deliver, so that was really nice to see. I loved how we stayed competitive all the way until the end."
The Aggies started slow against the Panthers, losing the first set by 10 points. They recovered in the second with a 6-1 run to take control at 24-19. A Panthers attack error gave the Aggies the set win, evening the match. The Aggies tied the third set at 22 on an
Agata Zwierzynska kill before the Panthers went on a 3-0 run to take the set and a 2-1 match lead.
A&T came out strong in the fourth set, taking an 8-3 lead on a
Zariah Winton service ace. Winton's kill gave the Aggies a 15-9 advantage. However, the Panthers rallied to cut A&T's lead to 20-18. A&T grew its lead to three on a service error by Kea Whillock. Back-to-back kills from the Panthers cut that lead to one before Zwierzynska's kill gave the Aggies set point at 24-22.
Kills from Remy Catojo and Gabby Hill tied the match at 24-24 before junior
Tyne Ross recorded a kill to give the Aggies set point again. Hill tied the set again with another kill. But Ross came through for the Aggies once more with a kill before Hill's attack error tied the match at 2-2. In the fifth set, Gabby Hill gave HPU a 13-10 lead, and a kill from Addison Freeland brought the contest to set and match point.
But Catojo's service error cut the lead. Sophomore
Nicole Ellis got the Aggies even closer with a kill. Freshman
Kirsten Kemper's ace tied the match at 14-14. But unfortunately, she followed it with a serving error. Aisha Keric gave HPU the win with a kill. The Panthers improved to 6-4, led by Hill, who finished with 23 kills and a .526 hitting percentage.
Winton led the Aggies by tying a career high with 20 kills. Ross added her 12
th career double-double with 19 kills and 14 digs. She also had two total blocks. Kemper came close to contributing a double-double with 43 assists and nine digs. Junior
Charlie Meadoweal did record her third double-double of the season with 12 assists and 11 digs. Zwierzynska contributed 12 kills.
"I was excited to see us close out those two sets and almost the fifth set," said Clifton. "Now it's time to move into conference play on Monday."
