BALTIMORE – Coppin State's volleyball team remained perfect in conference play with a dominant, 3-0 (25-12, 25-22, 25-7) victory over Delaware State on Sunday afternoon at PEC Arena. The Eagles improved to 12-9 overall and 6-0 in the MEAC while the Hornets fell to 6-13 on the year and 2-3 in conference play.
CSU hit a season-high .417, recording 45 kills on 84 attempts while committing just ten errors. The Eagles were credited with six total blocks and held the Hornets to a .067 hitting percentage, the second-lowest total for a Coppin opponent this year.
TaKenya Stafford posted a double-double with a team-high 11 kills to go with ten digs while
Cherisse Atilano added nine kills and six digs. The duo combined to hit .341 with Atilano swinging an efficient .471 on 17 attempts.
Ivanna Luna and
Deviana Walker had six kills apiece, followed by
Ahzhi Coleman with five, and both
Payton Swinton and
Kayden Cupid with three. Coleman led the Eagles with three blocks and passed both her sister
Miajavon Coleman and
Kandace Thomas for fifth on the CSU all-time list with 186 blocks.
Coco Figueroa became the sixth CSU player to record 1,000 career digs, posting a match-high 12 and now has 1,009 in her career. She also had a pair of aces and has 86 in her career which ranks tenth in CSU history.
Azul Pilahg led a trio of CSU setters with 15 assists to go with three digs.
Andrea Serrano added 12 assists and four digs in just two sets while
Andrea Cintron had nine assists and two digs in two sets.
Coppin was in control of the first set from the opening serve, starting the match on a 5-1 run. DSU responded with a kill and the three-point deficit was the closest it got the rest of the frame. The Eagles pulled away ever further with a 4-0 run featuring kills from Walker and Cupid to take a 19-8 lead. Following three-straight DSU points, Coppin closed it out with six of the final seven points with Stafford tallying kills on both ends of the stretch.
In a set of runs, DSU turned a 16-13 deficit into a 19-16 lead with six-straight points. Following a CSU timeout, Coppin regrouped to retake 21-20 lead with five of the next six points. DSU tied it up at 21 with a kill before back-to-back kills from Stafford and Atilano. The Hornets pulled to within one with a kill before giving it right back with a service error and Atilano closed it out with a kill.
CSU hit a whopping .727 with 16 kills on 22 attempts in the third set. The teams traded points to start the frame before Stafford posted a pair of kills during a 5-1 run. After trading three sets of points, Coppin sealed the match with 15 consecutive points on ten kills.
Coppin will head across town to play archrival Morgan State on Friday, October 17 at 6 pm before hosting NJIT (Oct. 21) and Howard (Oct. 23) next week.
