Final Stats 1 | Final Stats 2 LAFAYETTE, La. – The Nicholls State University women's volleyball team closed out play at the Sawyer Camillo Memorial Volleyball Classic on Saturday afternoon, splitting its matches with Houston and Alcorn State to put a cap on tournament play for the weekend.

Nicholls fell in three to the Cougars, while putting together one of their best matches of the season against Alcorn State to improve to 2-4 on the season with one tournament left to play next week. The Colonels were paced by the play of Kali Schwartz, who had 20 kills between the two matches, while Kalynn Egea was named to the all-tournament team after producing 17 digs during the two.

The Colonels will be back in action next week, taking part in the Hampton Inn Bama Bash hosted by the University of Alabama.

Nicholls 3, Alcorn State 0
The Nicholls State University women's volleyball team had its best hitting percentage of the season and dominated the Alcorn State Lady Braves to the tune of a 25-10, 25-8, 25-10 straight-sets victory to close out tournament play Saturday afternoon in Lafayette.

The Colonels amassed a hitting percentage of .403, committing just eight errors, while holding Alcorn State to just 10 kills and a -.169 average to improve to 2-4 on the season.

Kali Schwartz continued her solid play on the day by leading all players with 11 kills and picking up seven digs to hit .381 on the day. Brooke Fonseca chipped in seven and Robin Sill had six, while Ainsley Marroccoli had a game-high 11 assists while Alyse Barclay had eight and Marlee Bean had seven.

Nicholls was dangerous when it had the ball, serving up nine aces in the win led by Sill's three. When it didn't have the ball, the Lady Braves were stifled by the Colonel defense, as Kalynn Egea led the day with 10 digs while Fonseca had a solo block and three block assists among the seven total team blocks for Nicholls.

The Colonels opened the match by outscoring the Lady Braves 11-1, including runs of four and six points. Nicholls hit .421 in the set with ten kills, which was the fewest for the group in any of the three sets, as the team won the set on an Alcorn attack error.

The team once again jumped out to a big lead going up 9-1 in the second, getting solid offensive production from the entire playing group to finish with 12 kills in the set and hit .391 led by Fonseca and Schwartz with three kills each. A 7-0 run by Nicholls pushed its lead to 21-5 midway through and eventually closed the door scoring the final three points to earn the second set victory.

Nicholls stayed on the rampage to open the third and scored the first nine points before Alcorn called a timeout, scoring the first 13 points before the Lady Braves earned their first point. Although the Lady Braves had a little more fight in this set, Nicholls snuffed out any Acorn momentum with a few more runs and won the set 25-10 to close the event.


Houston 3, Nicholls 0
The Nicholls women's volleyball team hung tough with the Cougars of the American Athletic Conference, but only hitting .059 as a team and commit 20 attack errors, the University of Houston cruised to the straight-set 25-20, 25-20, 25-14 win over the Colonels in the opening match of the day for the two teams.

Kali Schwartz led all players with nine kills on in the morning, finishing the match with a .333 average and eight digs, followed by Kayla Burling's seven and Kayla Mashburn's six. Marlee Bean had 10 assists with Alyse Barclay serving up eight.

Houston hit .261 as a team and only committed 13 errors during the match, with six players accumulating three or more kills on the day. Houston's Sophie Paine had 30 assists with 11 in the first and third set.

The first set saw eight ties and four lead changes between the two, as Nicholls broke a 14-all in the middle of a 7-0 run capped by a UH attack error. Neither team gave an inch as the teams tied twice more, but not before the Cougars went on a four-point swing with the set tied at 16-16 to take the lead for good and hold off the Colonels for the first set victory.

There were just three ties in the second set, but Nicholls once again started on a solid note by holding a 10-7 lead early. Houston rallied tying the set at 12 which proved to be costly as it was the beginning of the Cougars' 8-0 run that put the match out of reach even though the Colonels were put together a small rally to get to the 20-point mark.

After putting so much effort into the first two matches, The Cougars jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the third and did not look back and powered its way to the 25-14 set win.