Carrollton, GA - Friday's Gulf South Conference volleyball match between the UWG Wolves and the Valdosta State Blazers had nearly everything one could ask for in a volleyball match, with West Georgia coming out on top in a grueling 3-2 victory over their in-state rivals.
The loss was the first conference loss for VSU in six matches and it came on a night when two individual records in The Coliseum fell for UWG. The Wolves won for the third straight year over the Blazers in The Coliseum with senior #
Melissa Holt# picking up a career-high and Coliseum record 31 digs. In addition, junior middle blocker #
Tiesha Alston# set a career-high and a Coliseum record for block assists in a match with nine.
The Wolves steamrolled through the first two sets of the night, hitting .282 and .289 in the first and second sets, respectively en route to a 2-0 lead in the match. UWG won the first 25-20, then took it one step further in the second set with a 25-19 win. #
Emily Reul# and Holt led the way in the first set with six kills from Reul and 11 digs from Holt.
But in the third and fourth sets, the Blazers turned the tables on the Wolves with a 25-23 win in set three, holding UWG to just a .065 hitting percentage. In the fourth, VSU hit over .300 as a team and took a 25-20 victory to send the match to a fifth and deciding set.
The fifth set was all UWG, as the Wolves reeled off eight straight points en route to a 15-8 victory to take the set and the match. The Wolves hit .350 as a team in that fifth set, led by #
Lesley Bemis# and #
Amanda Miles#, who each had three kills in the final set of the night.
Bemis led the Wolves with 22 kills on the night, six more than her previous career-high. Reul rebounded from a tough night against Shorter with 19 kills against VSU and she had her ninth double-double with 12 digs as well. It was the third time in Holt's career that she eclipsed the 30-dig plateau and junior #
Samantha Drane# added 10 digs for her first double-digit digs night. As a team, the Wolves had 11 blocks, led by Alston's nine block assists.
West Georgia is off until next Friday evening, when UWG will take on Christan Brothers on the road.
