Box Score GREENSBORO, N.C. – Jessica Johnson tallied a career-high 20 kills, and Noelle Eagles broke her own school record for digs in a match with 33 as the Norfolk State volleyball team survived against North Carolina A&T, 3-2, Wednesday night in a non-conference match at Moore Gymnasium.

NSU (7-18) rallied from three points down in the fifth set to win by a 15-13 margin. The Spartans easily won the first and third sets, 25-16, 25-15, and would have made it a 3-0 sweep had the Aggies not won in extra points in the second set, 31-29. A&T (1-25) also won the fourth set, 25-22.

The Spartans hit .235 and had a season-high 69 kills, led by the freshman Johnson's 20. She also completed the double-double with 13 digs. Eagles topped her previous school record of 31 digs set against Hampton on Sept. 22. The redshirt sophomore now owns the top 4 performances in NSU history, including a pair of 30-dig efforts her freshman year in 2010.

TeBorah Hawkins led the Aggies with 15 kills, while Ashley Johnson added 25 digs.

Jessica Johnson had four of her kills in the last set, during which the Spartans took a 6-4 lead before the Aggies went on a 5-0 run. Senior Charlotte Armstead had a couple of kills to help NSU tie the set at 10-10. The teams traded points before the Spartans used a kill from Johnson and a service ace from sophomore Adriana Ramos to get to match point, 14-12.

After a service error on NSU, Johnson put down the last of her 20 kills for the win.

Armstead had 15 kills in the match, while junior Goda Jankauskaite also reached double figures with 10. It marked the first time in 14 matches that Armstead did not lead the Spartans in kills.

The Aggies had a pair of early two-point leads to start the match before Johnson, Jankauskaite and junior Coralie Jarema blocked an A&T attack to put NSU up by one. After Hawkins put down a kill to give the Aggies a 15-14 lead, though, the Spartans went on an 11-1 run to close the set.

Sophomore Jasmin Flowers had three kills during that run. She finished with 11 kills on a .310 attack percentage for the match.

The Aggies slowly built up a 9-7 lead in the second set, but the Spartans used a pair of 3-0 spurts to force an A&T timeout up 15-13. The Aggies took the lead right back, but the teams went back and forth from there. Armstead had three kills as NSU went up by one, 23-22. After NSU held off set point, kills by Jankauskaite and Johnson twice got the Spartans to within one point of a second-set win. A&T actually held off set point three different times and won four of the last five points to take the set.

Johnson had seven of her kills during the second set.

NSU won the first three points of the third set, but the Aggies chipped away at the lead and eventually went up by one, 11-10, thanks to back-to-back kills from Hawkins. And then much like the first set, NSU went on a big run to close things out. Johnson had a kill and two service aces during an 8-0 run, which was part of a larger 13-2 run by NSU to close out the set.

Then in the fourth, a couple of 3-0 runs eventually helped the Aggies build a 9-7 advantage. Jarema capped a 4-0 run to put the Spartans up by a 14-12 score, but A&T won eight of the next 11 points for a three-point edge. Down 23-19, NSU used kills from three different players to get as close as 24-22 before the Aggies forced a fifth set.

Freshman Darcy Moore had 36 assists for NSU, while senior Nicole Kessner added 16. The Spartans finished with a school-record 62 assists on the night.

Brooke Stamnes posted a double-double of 17 digs and 13 kills for the Aggies. A&T attacked at a .182 clip in the match.

NSU will play a home-and-home series with Hampton this weekend. The Spartans will host the Pirates on Friday at 6 p.m. in Joseph Echols Hall and make a return trip to Hampton Sunday at 3.