HUNTINGTON, W.V. – Coppin State's volleyball team rallied from two sets down at the Marshall Invitational to defeat the host Thundering Herd, 3-2 (21-25, 7-25, 25-18, 25-16, 15-9) on Saturday afternoon at Cam Henderson Center. The Eagles have won four-straight matches to improve to 5-1 on the year which is their best start in program-history.
The Eagles got double-doubles from
Ammaarah Williams (13 kills, 14 digs) and
Andrea Tsvetanova (45 assists, ten digs) while
Hope Casel and
TaKenya Stafford added 12 kills apiece. In the middle,
Geraldyn Palacios had nine kills with a team-high three blocks while
Laila Ibrahim had seven kills on nine swings.
Ashley Roman continues her quest towards the MEAC record for digs as she recorded a match-high 25 digs with 12 coming in the fourth set alone. Roman now has 2,049 career digs and needs just 18 more to break the conference record of 2,066 held by Ashley Preston.
Providing the spark that Coppin needed to complete the comeback was freshman
Kaliko Schilling who was credited with six aces.
In the opening set, Marshall maintained control despite a pair of one-point leads by the Eagles early on. With it all tied at ten, the Thundering Herd went on a 7-2 run before Coppin came right back with three-straight points with kills from Stafford, Williams and Palacios. Marshall answered with four of the next five points to extend its lead back to five points and never looked back.
Marshall ran away with the second set with an early 6-0 run before committing a service error, but the hosts scored the next ten points to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
With the third set deadlocked at five, Coppin went on a 5-0 run as freshman
Kaliko Schilling served three consecutive aces put the Eagles on top, 10-5. Following a Marshall kill, Tsvetanova recorded a kill and came right back with an ace of her own. CSU led by as many as nine points to force a fourth set.
After Marshall recorded the first point of the fourth, Coppin got a kill from Stafford and another ace by Schilling and led the rest of the way. The Herd pulled to within, 9-8, but Palacios and Williams led a 5-1 CSU run with a pair of points apiece and Schilling tallied her fifth ace of the match to finish the frame.
Coppin led from start to finish in the decider, getting kills from Palacios and Stafford and an ace from Tsvetanova to open a 4-1 lead. After an error, the Eagles scored the next four points with three-straight kills by Casel as the teams switched sides at 8-2. Marshall got as close as 11-7, but Palacios answered with a kill and Schilling followed with another ace before Stafford finished the match with a pair of kills.
Coppin returns to action on Tuesday, September 5 when it makes the short trip to Loyola Maryland for a 6 pm start.
