BALTIMORE – The Coppin State volleyball team rallied from a two‐set deficit to defeat Howard, 3–2 (22-25, 22-25, 25-16, 25-19, 15-10) on Thursday night at PEC Arena. With the victory, the Eagles improved to 15–9 overall and remain undefeated in MEAC play at 8–0.
Four different Eagles posted double-doubles, led by redshirt senior
TaKenya Stafford who registered 19 kills on .356 hitting to go with 14 digs and a pair of aces. Freshman pin
Cherisse Atilano got stronger as the game went on and put up 15 kills to go with 16 digs.
Also, putting up double-doubles were setters
Andrea Serrano with 27 assists and 14 digs, as well as
Azul Pilahg with 18 assists and ten digs. The duo quarterbacked the offense to a .231 hitting percentage, including a whopping .448 over the final three sets.
Ivanna Luna also came up big in the later sets, recording 11 kills on .214 hitting to go with five blocks, which were just behind
Ahzhi Coleman's six blocks to go with eight kills on .429 hitting.
McKenzie Parks also came through on both ends of the floor, tallying four kills and three blocks.
The back row was once again led by
Coco Figueroa who recorded a match-high 24 digs as the Eagles held the Bison to .171 hitting for the match. Figueroa recorded her tenth match with at least 20 digs this season and moved into fifth on CSU's all-time digs list with 1,065, surpassing all-time leading hitter
Miajavon Coleman.
Howard jumped out to a commanding lead, taking the first two sets by identical 25-22 scores. Coppin struggled to get its offense going early, hitting just .167 in the first before swinging .000 with ten kills and ten errors in the second.
CSU hammered a match-high 17 kills to hit .483 in the third set and led from start to finish. The Eagles began to pull away with a 6-1 run to go up, 13-6, and led by as many as 21-9 following five-straight points.
Howard scored the first four points of the fourth, but Coppin maintained its composure and took eight of the next nine points. The Bison responded to pull back within, 14-13, but Coppin kept answering each Howard rally with one of their own to force a deciding set.
Coppin looked like it would run away with the fifth, getting out to a 6-3 lead following a pair of blistering kills from Luna. Howard answered with five of the next six points to take an 8-7 lead and the teams switched sides. Stafford tied it up with a kill before Coleman and
Deviana Walker gave the Eagles back the lead with a block. The duo also produced back-to-back kills to put Coppin on top, 11-8. The Bison pulled back within, 11-10, before Coppin finished them off with four-straight points.
The Navy & Gold will look to match a program-record for its longest winning streak when it travels to Norfolk State for a 1 pm start on Sunday, October 26. Coppin has won ten-straight matches twice, coming in the Spring 2021 season, as well as the 2023 season.
