CHARLESTON, S.C.— Carson-Newman faced another pair of losses on the season in day one of the College of Charleston Tournament.
Florida Southern University (3-6) defeated C-N 4-1 in the first match of the day. Summer Coulter and Abby Struewing received their first win of the year at the No. 1 seed, but the Eagles were too far behind to recover.
The Orange and Blue lost in a 5-0 shutout to Texas A&M Kingsville (3-6) in the following match later that afternoon.
"I saw good things today," coach Kody DuBarry said. "We are getting better at playing at the net. All of our bigs are consistently effecting the game at the net blocking and that's a huge change for us."
Match 1- Florida Southern 4, C-N 1
Lexy Headley and Taryn Nichols kicked off the day at the No. 5 position. Katie Burgeron and Morgan Cleary defeated the C-N pair in back-to-back 21-15 sets.
Haley Goodrich and Celia Greco beat C-N's duo of Lauren Williams and Montgomery Sauter at the No. 4 seed. The first set ended 21-11 with a similar set following at 21-10.
At the No. 3 spot, Grace Seymour and Dilyn Palmer lost in mirror sets 21-5, 21-5 to the Mocs' Kennedy Mathews and Lee Calhoun. This was the largest margin of defeat throughout the entire dual, handing Florida Southern the win for the day with a 3-0 lead.
The No. 2 group, Kelly Hughes and Aryana Fazelina, also competed in a low scoring match. Kayla Trefren and Kylee Whiteleather smashed the C-N pair in the first set 21-5. Hughes and Fazelina tried to gain momentum in the second set but failed, losing 21-11.
Summer Coulter and Abby Struewing gave C-N their first and only win of the dual and the day as a whole. They defeated Makena Wilson and Alex Montoya in the first set 21-18. The second set thriller went into extra points but ended in favor of the Florida Southern duo 22-20. The tie-breaking third set brought a back and forth effort from both sides of the net, but ultimately went to the Eagles group 15-12.
"It was great to see Summer and Abby play their hearts out to win a match. Probably the best volleyball they have played," DuBarry said.
Match 2- Texas A&M Kingsville 5, C-N 0
The match against Texas A&M Kingsville began with a 21-10, 21-6 defeat at the No. 5 spot. Headly and Nichols competed to the best of their abilities but were unable to rally past 10 points against the Javelina pair of Nicole Murff and Christina Gradasin.
At the No. 4 spot, Williams and Sauter lost to TaylorLynn Noga and Lauren Kadilis in a quick two-set defeat 21-12, 21-19.
The No. 3 pairing of Grace Seymour and Dilyn Palmer scored the most points of any C-N pairing in the dual with a first set score of 21-13. However, they fell to Haley Hutchinson and Macy Berg in the second set 21-6, handing the game over to the Javelina duo. This gave Texas A&M Kingsville a 3-0 lead over the Eagles heading into the final flights.
Hughes and Fazelnia fell in back-to-back sets 21-8 and 21-17 to Madison Brabham and Kylexus Block at the second seed placement.
Lastly, at the No. 1 spot, Summer Coulter and Abby Struewing could not continue their winning streak for the day. They fell in consecutive sets to Tenley Housler and Whitney Walker 21-9, 21-12.
"Tomorrow I really want them to go out and play a very good Charleston team and compete with everything they have" DuBarry said.
The Eagles are back tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. against the hosting College of Charleston before facing Huntingdon at 1 p.m. to close out the tournament.
