The ETSU women’s volleyball team competed in back-to-back matches against Citadel and Wofford. On Nov. 8 the Bucs competed against The Citadel winning 3-1 (25-14, 23-25, 25-16, 25-12) and against Wofford on Nov. 9 also winning 3-1 (25-15, 25-20, 20-25, 26-24).
“Every week we start to get a little bit better with each other,” said head coach Benevia Jenkins. “Of course there is a lot of components of the game that we’re still working on getting better at. This weekend I was really impressed with our players putting up some good numbers in our serving game.”
In the match against The Citadel, the Bucs dominated the first set after starting with a 15-7 lead. The Bucs forced the Bulldogs into a timeout, but continued to lead and win the set with a 5-3 run.
The Citadel took the win for the second set at 25-23, but the Bucs came back in the third set after taking a 10-1 lead early on. Junior Marija Popovic (Belgrade, Serbia), freshman Lauren Hatch (Homewood, Ill) and freshman Olivia Cunningham (Knoxville, Tenn.) assisted the Bucs’ total of eight series aces. The team won the set 25-16.
The Bucs took the fourth and final set after taking an early lead of 6-1 and then 17-6, resulting in the 25-12 victory.
The following day, the Bucs dominated the Wofford Terriers during the first two sets at 25-15 and 25-20. The Terriers came back, however, in the third set forcing the Bucs to call a timeout before losing the set 25-20.
After losing the third set against Wofford, the team had to come back to win the fourth set.
“We had a lot of unforced errors in the third set, so we had to pick that back up and play cleaner volleyball,” said Cunningham. “We really needed to pick up our serves and play clean.”
The Bucs took the lead 11-9 in the fourth set forcing the Terriers to call a timeout before the the teams tied at 15. The Bucs took the win after points were made by Hatch and Cunningham.
Hatch and Cunningham led the team in kills per set.
“Both players are great outsides; work hard in practice,” Jenkins said. “We are just super happy to have both of them as a part of our team. I can only see them getting better by the end of the season.”
