Charleston Edges Volleyball
11/9/2008 5:03:00 AM | Volleyball
STATESBORO, Ga. --- Georgia Southern led the College of Charleston in hitting percentage and blocks, but CofC came away with the win, a 3-0 (27-25, 25-23, 25-22) sweep Sunday afternoon at Hanner Fieldhouse.
Charleston, who has clinched the Southern Conference South Division title, improves to 22-6 and 15-1 in the league. GSU drops to 15-16 and 8-8.
“I thought we competed well I just don’t know that we executed the way we needed to, particularly in critical situations,” said GSU head coach Chad Callihan. “When the games got to about 20 we didn’t take care of the ball good enough to score in critical times. Charleston’s a great team and did a great job ? they’ve played in tight situations a lot the last few years now and I think we’re still learning how to handle those situations.”
Georgia Southern held a .274-.259 advantage in hitting percentage and outblocked the Cougars 11-3.
The Eagles led 21-19 in both set one and two but allowed the Cougars to a 3-0 and 4-0 run, respectively, and eventually lost each set.
“I thought we did some great things, really moved the ball around well and thought our hitters did a great job of adjusting to our sets but we couldn’t put enough shots together in critical moments,” said Callihan. “A mistake here or mistake there against a quality opponent will be the difference.”
Sophomore Michelle Uzoh (San Antonio, Texas) recorded seven blocks, including one solo, and had six kills with no errors. Freshman Parker Small (Charlotte, N.C.) tallied five kills with no errors and had two block assists. Freshman Lauren Claybaugh (Danville, Calif.) matched Uzoh with six assists and one solo.
“We did a good job against a pretty difficult setter to read ? she does a good job of taking the ball high which makes it difficult on middles to read and react but we did a nice job of closing, our pin players did a good job of setting the block in the right places so it was definitely a strong point for us today,” said Callihan.
Senior Christy Dowd (Indianapolis, Ind.) shared match-high honors with CofC’s Emily Sawin with 13 kills on 24 swings.
For Charleston, three players recorded double-figure kills, led by Sawin’s 13 and Elyse Chubb and Whitney Russell had 10 apiece.
The Eagles close out the regular season next weekend with home matches against Furman on Friday and Wofford on Saturday.
