Lady Hornets sweep SWAC regular season
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (bamastatesports.com) – The Alabama State women’s volleyball team completed the perfect conference regular season by sweeping Alcorn State 3-0 by the scores of 25-12, 25-7, 26-24 Tuesday night on Senior Night at Lockhart Gymnasium.
Alabama State (21-8 overall, 18-0 SWAC) honored five of Alcorn State’s seniors and ASU’s lone senior Jamie Coleman before the game with recognition, flowers and a brief outline of accomplishments both on the court and in the classroom.
In the match, ASU took control from the onset and took the first two sets with ease before fighting off a pesky Braves team in the final set.
“I don’t think we started out thinking, ’Let’s go 18-0, but one thing we did was take one match at a time’,” said ASU head women’s volleyball coach Penny Lucas-White.
“We didn’t overlook anybody. This team has responded extremely well to the staff leadership and our captains have done an exceptional job nurturing our young team. They are a good group to coach and their cohesion is genuine. A key factor is that they genuinely like each other.”
Once again, the front line of Briana Dorsey, Ni’yesha Brown, and Krysta Medearis all had big nights as the team collectively hit for a .356 hitting percentage.
The third set offered the most drama as Alcorn was able to tie it at 24-24 before a Dorsey kill and an attacking error by the Braves’ Jasmine Cruz.
Dorsey was on her game, coming up a game-high 16 kills with thundering spikes and committed just one error on 20 attacks for a robust .750 hitting percentage.
Brown had nine kills and seven digs while Medearis added eight kills and Justus Tuiolosega provided a double-double with 15 assists and 10 digs.
Jamie Coleman, who was playing in her final game at home, topped the 1,000 career dig milestone with a team-best 16 digs.
Coleman ranks second all-time in program history in digs with 1,006 heading into the SWAC Tournament.
Setters Justus Tuiolosega led with 20 assists and Kori Kutsch provided 16 assists and Jamie Coleman had 11 digs as she is now just 10 digs shy of reaching 1,000 digs for her career.
She’s behind just Luiza Griz (1,194 digs), who played from 2011-2013.
Next, top-seeded ASU travels to Jackson, Miss. to begin play in the SWAC Tournament on Friday at 11 a.m. against No. 8 seed Grambling State.
