Nov. 7, 2008

Box Score

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The Colonel volleyball team picked up a big win Friday night, claiming a 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 13-25, 26-24) victory over Texas-San Antonio and helping ensure Nicholls a spot in the Southland Conference Tournament.

"This is a great win for us tonight," said head coach Chris Laird. "It definitely gives us a better feeling about ourselves heading into the conference tournament in a couple of weeks. We played really well and had some definite highlights. We had a lot of girls make some key plays off of the bench, so that's huge. I'm just very proud of these girls - this is their win.

Nicholls (8-15, 5-8 SLC)had impressive offensive performances from juniors Manieka Golden (Porter, Texas/Galveston CC) and Rachel Spreen (Houston, Texas/Bellaire) who tallied 15 and 13 kills, respectively.

Freshman Danielle Daigle (Napoleonville, La./Assumption) tallied a team-high 22 digs, while classmate Rachel Yezak (Houston, Texas/Klein) also reached double digits with 10.

Junior Amy Whitehead (San Antonio, Texas/Douglas MacArthur) dished out 43 assists, ading four block assists. Senior Chelsey Adams (Gulf Breeze, Fla./Pensacola JC) led the squad with five block assists on the night.

The Roadrunners (17-10, 9-4 SLC) sank themselves in the first set. After Nicholls rallied from a five-point deficit, three-straight UTSA attack errors gave the victory to the Colonels 25-23.

Nicholls was in control through the second set, never trailing after breaking a 5-5 stalemate. The Colonels maintained a four-point lead through much of the game, finishing with a 25-21 win.

But the Colonels struggled through the third frame, dropping a 25-13 decision to fall to 2-1 on the match.

The fourth set was close, as the Colonels needed extra points to close out the set and the match 26-24. The squads traded serves back and forth before Nicholls scored three of the last four points for the match victory.

"Losing the third set was disappointing," Laird noted, "but we stayed composed and had poise and were able to come back and take the fourth set for the win. That's what we've been talking about all season - having composure and poise, so it's great to see us playing this way at this point in the season. We need to go to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi tomorrow and take care of business."

The Colonels travel to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to face the Islanders in a 4 p.m. match.

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