DURHAM, N.C. – Ezgi Kucuk and
TaKenya Stafford posted 18 kills apiece and
Coco Figueroa went for a career high in digs as Coppin State's volleyball team pulled off a 3-1 (23-25, 25-22, 25-15, 25-23) victory at NC Central on Sunday afternoon at McDougald-McLendon Arena. Coppin improved to 13-14 overall and 9-2 in the MEAC while Central fell to 6-15 on the year and 4-6 in league play.
Head Coach
Tim Walsh has now coached 100 MEAC matches, going an impressive 70-30 in those contests.
Kucuk hit .417 while establishing a season-high in kills and added a pair of blocks while Stafford notched a double-double with a season-high 19 digs and hit .286 for the day. Stafford also passed
Asia Stennis on Coppin's all-time kills list and now ranks eighth in school history with 703 kills in less than two full seasons.
Figueroa recorded the first double-double of her career, tallying a match-high 27 digs along with 11 assists, which is also a career-high.
Sophia Bertotti Metoyer was also in double figures with ten kills, followed by
Ahzhi Coleman with nine,
McKenzie Parks with five and
Gabriela Zuquelo with four. Parks and Coleman matched Kucuk with two blocks apiece and Zuquelo came up big with 12 digs, forcing Central to just .156 swinging.
Azul Pilahg had her second double-double at CSU, leading the team with 26 assists to go with ten digs.
Kahea Carvalho was just behind her with 25 assists as the duo led the offense to a .275 hitting percentage.
It looked like the first set would go in Coppin's favor as it led by as many as 13-6 and again at 16-10 on a block by Coleman. NC Central clawed its way back into it with a 4-0 run and tied the score at 19. After a pair of CSU points, Central answered with three-straight points and scored three of the final four points to take the opener.
The second set featured a series of runs by either team before Coppin put it away with three kills on the final four points on kills from Kucuk, Parks and Bertotti Metoyer.
Set three was all Coppin, who began to pull away with an early 7-1 run, featuring three points apiece from Coleman and Kucuk. CSU led by as many as 21-10 following kills from Stafford that sandwiched another by Kucuk. The hosts got back to within 23-15 before CSU scored the next two.
Neither team led by more than two points in the fourth set, which featured 15 ties and five lead changes. Coppin ultimately prevailed with the final two points of the set on a kill by Coleman and a Central attack error.
Coppin returns to action on Friday, November 8 when it travels to Norfolk State for a 6 pm start. Two days later. CSU hosts Howard on Senior Day at 3:00 pm, where it'll honor
Ahzhi Coleman and
Sophia Bertotti Metoyer in a pre-match ceremony.
