BALTIMORE – Chudear Tut led all players with a season-high 14 kills to lead the Coppin State volleyball team to a 3-0 (25-11, 25-16, 25-20) victory over Morgan State in the regular season finale on Sunday night at PEC Arena.
The Eagles have now won a program-record nine-straight matches and improve to 10-4 on the year with a program-best 9-1 mark in league play. It was also the first time ever that Coppin swept the Bears in three sets.
A freshman from Minneapolis, Minn., Tut hit a whopping .500 for the match, committing just two errors on 24 swings while leading the team with four blocks. Tut finished the regular season by leading the team with a .344 hitting percentage and 51 total blocks while ranking second on the squad with 133 kills in hopes of collecting Rookie of the Year honors.
Following up on Tut was
Paola Caten, who added nine kills with eight digs, while
Sydney Hicks finished with eight kills.
Salma Gonzalez and
Jordan Celestine each chipped in with five kills while Gonzalez added ten digs and a block in her final home match.
Kareemah Hopkins and
Kyndall Johnson also had two kills apiece.
Hopkins assisted on 29 of the team's 45 kills as the eagles outhit Morgan, .265 to .052.
Sydney Sheppard spelled her at setter and had five assists.
On the defensive end,
Ashley Roman was credited with a team-high 17 digs while
Aislynn Weaver added a career-high 13 digs.
Coppin pulled away early in the opening set with a 7-0 run which featured a pair of aces by
Khala Cameron and kills from Hopkins, Celestine, and Hicks. The teams then traded points, but after a pair of kills by Morgan, Caten stopped the bleeding with a kill to put CSU on top, 19-9 and the Eagles closed it out with a 6-2 run. CSU hit an impressive .517 in the frame, recording 16 kills with just one error.
Morgan took an early 4-3 lead in the second set, but a block by Tut sparked a 10-1 run and the Eagles took a 13-5 lead. The Bears closed to within 17-13 but Tut once again stepped up and added two kills down the stretch to give the Eagles the set. CSU's defense really stepped it up in the set, holding Morgan to a -.022 hitting percentage.
Tut came up huge early in the third set with three kills and a block during a 7-0 run, giving Coppin a 12-4 lead. Morgan would not go away, however, pulling to within 19-15. Tut answered with a kill, followed by back-to-back kills from Gonzalez to extend the lead back to 22-15. After a pair of Bears points, Coppin scored on a service error, got an ace from
Rebekka Hauri and a match-sealing kill by Johnson.
The Eagles will be the Northern Division's top seed in the MEAC Tournament to be held on April 2-3 at Norfolk State University.
