BALTIMORE – Coppin State's volleyball team clinched the MEAC Regular Season title outright by matching a program-record with its 23
rd victory in a 3-0 (27-25, 25-18, 25-21) victory at Morgan State on Wednesday night at Hill Field House. The Eagles are now 23-4 overall and 12-1 in league play, also matching a school record for conference wins in a season.
The regular season championship is Coppin's third in the last four seasons.
Paola Caten led all players with 12 kills on .348 swinging, adding a block and a pair of digs while
Ammaarah Williams pounded eight kills without an error on 19 swings. Williams also added an ace, a block and five digs.
Middle hitters
Laila Ibrahim and
Geraldyn Palacios combined for 12 kills in the sweep with
TaKenya Stafford adding five kills and eight digs, followed by
Andrea Tsvetanova with two kills and
Cameron Lucas with one. Ibrahim led all players with three blocks as well.
Tsvetanova split time at setter and was credited with a match-high 25 assists to go with an ace and six digs.
Andrea Serrano added 11 assists while serving a career-high six aces to go with three digs.
In the backrow,
Ashley Roman led all players with 12 digs.
First Set
- Coppin could not pull away as the Eagles let a 22-18 lead slip away and Morgan regained a lead at 24-22.
- The Eagles got a kill from Ibrahim and two-straight from Williams to retake a 25-24 lead, but the Bears tied the score after a bad set.
- CSU finally prevailed after forcing an error before Caten finished the set off with a kill.
Second Set
- Coppin never trailed and used a 5-1 run early on with a kill by Caten and two more from Williams to go up, 7-3.
- Morgan pulled to within, 16-15, before the Eagles scored five-straight points as two kills from Palacios bookended back-to-back aces from Serrano.
- The Bears called timeout and scored four-straight to pull within two before Coppin took the 2-0 lead in the match.
Third Set
- Once again, the Eagles never trailed but were not able to pull away but came up with the win.
- Coppin was clinging to a 22-21 lead before Caten recorded a kill, followed by back-to-back points from Williams for the clincher.
Up Next: The same two teams will meet in the regular season finale at PEC Arena on Friday, November 10 at 7 pm. Prior to the match, Coppin will honor its seniors:
Genesis Hernandez, Ammaarah Williams, Geraldyn Palacios, Paola Caten, Andrea Tsvetanova and
Ashley Roman.
