Box Score

NORFOLK, Va. – The Norfolk State volleyball team started off slow, allowing North Carolina A&T to win its first set of the year, but the Spartans turned it on as the match wore on in a 3-1 victory over the Aggies Tuesday evening at Joseph Echols Hall.

In their first home match of the year, the Spartans won, 25-18, 23-25, 25-15, 25-12, thanks to 15 kills from junior Beatriz Ferreira. NSU ran its record to 4-8 overall, while the Aggies fell to 0-17.

NSU hit .216 with 57 kills but committed 27 attack errors and 12 service errors. The Aggies hit just .017 and had 23 attack errors. NSU also held a big advantage in digs, 69-47, led by senior Tracey Copley with 23. The Spartans had six players with at least six or more kills.

Junior Kristen Burt tallied a double-double with 38 assists and 14 digs to go along with six kills. Junior Charlotte Armstead and senior Jasmine Frazier pitched in with nine kills each, while freshman Adriana Ramos and junior Megan Lavo added eight and seven, respectively.

NSU had 18 of its 27 attack errors in the first two sets. After jumping out to a 6-1 lead to start the match, a pair of NSU attack errors made it 7-5, and then two more attack errors cut the NSU lead to one, 9-8. Armstead and Ramos combined for three straight kills for a 16-11 advantage, but the Spartans let the Aggies hang around, as a 5-1 run for A&T made it 17-16. Ferreira added two kills over the last three serves to finally put the Aggies away in the opening stanza.

The errors continued to haunt NSU in the second set despite another early lead at 6-2. A&T cut the lead to one, 8-7, and after a service error on the Aggies made it 12-9 in favor of the Spartans, an 8-2 run by the Aggies gave them the lead, 17-14. Back-to-back kills by junior Paige Gary-Canty and Ferreira tied the set at 18-18, but NSU got no closer than a 20-20 tie the rest of the way as A&T won its first set of the year.

NSU spent almost the entire 10-minute break in the locker room, and then came out and hit .294 in the third set and .320 in the fourth. Kills by Ferreira and Lavo gave the Spartans a 7-2 lead to start things off in that third set. Two straight attack errors on the Spartans cut the deficit to two, 9-7, but then up by just two, 12-10, NSU used kills by Frazier and Ramos to take a 16-10 lead and force an A&T timeout. Ferreira started a 6-1 run, which was then capped by a pair of Frazier kills, to make it 22-13. Armstead later threw down the last two kills of that third set.

Seven attack errors on the Aggies helped NSU take a 9-0 in the fourth set, a lead that stretched to 14-5 thanks to back-to-back kills by Lavo and Frazier. Up 17-10, several more errors on the Aggies pushed the lead to 20-10, and then kills from freshman Jasmin Flowers, Ferreira and Ramos and a service ace from Lavo ended things at 25-12.

The Aggies were led by Jenea Daniels with eight kills, nine digs and three blocks. Devonte' Reese posted 12 digs, and Chelsea Fox had 23 assists. A&T held a 4-2 advantage in blocks.

The Spartans will return to Echols Hall Wednesday against Hampton at 6 p.m., followed by Coppin State Friday at 6.