Volleyball looks to continue winning streak in road games

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Katie Tolbert

 

Georgia Southern University’s volleyball team (18-6) is on a six match winning streak, headed into two away games against College of Charleston (18-6) on Friday at 7 p.m. and The Citadel (4-22) on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Earlier this season, the Eagles played both the Cougars and the Bulldogs at home. GSU defeated the Bulldogs with a sweep but fell to the Cougars in a 0-3 loss. Both the Cougars and the Eagles have the same overall record and are both 9-1 in the Southern Conference.

GSU will be facing their toughest match first against CofC. Leading the Eagles with kills is senior outside hitter Meredith Paskert with 307 season kills and senior outside hitter Moriah Bellissimo with 229 season kills.

The Cougars have junior outside hitter Darcy Dorton with 357 season kills and sophomore middle blocker Sloane White with 233 season kills.

Previously, GSU held Dorton to 12 kills with a .135 hitting percentage and held White to 10 kills with a .292 hitting percentage.

On the defense, the Cougars have senior libero Emily Shelton with 433 digs. As a freshman, Eagle libero Alexandra Beecher has 406 digs. GSU is coming into this game having won six-straight matches and CofC having won five straight matches.

The next match will be against the Bulldogs at their home court. Having lost to GSU once already this season and having lost the past four matches, the Bulldogs, 0-10 in conference, have their work cut out for them against the 9-1 Eagles.

Up at the net, the Bulldogs biggest threat is senior right side hitter Rachael Farrell with 200 kills. During the previous match, the Eagles held her to 8 kills with a .211 hitting percentage.

This past weekend, Paskert had a career high 22 kills in the match against Samford University and sophomore middle blocker Kym Coley received 14 kills with a .667 hitting percentage in the match against The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, so coming off of those performances the Bulldogs’ defense needs to be ready. Leading The Citadel’s defense is senior libero Emily Dalton with 233 digs.

After the Eagles’ four match road swing, they will return home Saturday, Nov. 3 to face Western Carolina University and Monday, Nov. 5 to face Davidson University.