Box Score NORFOLK, Va. – It appeared the Norfolk State volleyball team was on track to earn its second win in a row after a solid first set against Coppin State on Sunday afternoon. The Eagles, though, had other plans as they stormed back to defeat NSU 3-1 in a MEAC matchup at Joseph Echols Hall.
The Spartans won the first set 25-20 after hitting better than .400 in that opening stanza. The Eagles switched up their lineup and then won the next two sets, 25-17 and 25-15. The Spartans rallied in the end but ultimately came up short in the fourth set, 25-23.
NSU (1-20 overall, 1-8 MEAC) got a strong performance from sophomore
Tori Tulensru, who tallied a career-best 18 kills while hitting .400. As a team, the Spartans attacked at a .252 clip.
Coppin State (11-11, 5-4 MEAC), though, hit .347 for the match with just 12 attack errors.
The momentum the Spartans built up on Friday when they won their first match of the year carried over to the first set on Sunday against the Eagles. NSU won the first three points of the match and built its lead to 7-4 following a block by junior
Angie Darcus. The Spartans won four in a row a short time later and then went up by seven, 17-10, on a block by senior
Kylee Thiim and junior
Jessica Johnson.
A pair of 3-0 spurts by the Eagles, though, eventually cut the NSU lead to 21-19. Tulensru had two kills, and sophomore
Alex Irizarry closed out the set with a service ace.
The Eagles turned around and won the first seven points of the second set and went up by as much as 12, 19-7, following a 5-0 run. Johnson and Thiim had a pair of kills to spark NSU during a 7-1 run, but the deficit proved to be too much.
The Eagles started the third set on an 8-1 run and used a 7-0 run later to build a 21-8 advantage. Johnson and Tulensru each had a pair of kills late in the set as NSU got to within 10 points.
The Spartans made it interesting in the fourth set, starting off by winning the first three points. Eventually the Eagles went ahead by two, 13-11. Darcus, Johnson and Thiim laid down three straight kills to earn the lead back, but a 5-0 CSU run put the Eagles up 19-15. Down 23-19, NSU received kills by Thiim and Johnson and an attack error from the Eagles to make it 23-22. Kills from Kandace Thomas and Cindy Okpegbue, though, gave Coppin State the match victory.
Okpegbue had 10 kills, while Kendra Ireigbe added a team-high 12 kills on a .688 attack percentage with seven blocks. Maya Horner contributed eight kills and seven blocks as well.
Johnson added 11 kills for NSU, and Darcus contributed 10 kills to go with 31 assists and five digs. Thiim tallied seven kills on just 11 swings.
Coppin State held a 12.5-4 edge in blocks and had just one service error compared to 14 for NSU.
The Spartans will hit the road for one last time this season when they play at Howard next Friday at 7 p.m. at Burr Gymnasium.
