The Chattanooga Mocs volleyball team picked up its fourth-straight win with a 3-2 (24-26, 25-21, 12-25, 25-16, 17-15) comeback win at The Citadel on Saturday night.
UTC earned their second five-set win over The Citadel this season and improved to 15-10 overall and 8-4 in the Southern Conference. The Bulldogs fall to 8-20, 1-11 in SoCon play.
"I'm really proud of our team to come out of that match with a win," said coach Travis Filar. "Ton of credit to The Citadel they play very hard and their defense put pressure on us all night."
1st SET | The match began with a back-and-forth set that featured eleven ties and four lead changes between the teams.
The largest lead of the set came from the Bulldogs at 19-15 before the Mocs answered with four-straight points to tie the set at 19-19. Citadel responded with three straight points to take a 22-20 lead. UTC ultimately fell 26-24 as the Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead in the match.
2nd SET | Another closely played set early on with frequent ties and lead changes, the Mocs used a 5-1 run after a tie of 10-10 to open up a 15-11 lead. The Bulldogs brought it back to 18-17 before UTC took seven of the last 11 points in the set, winning 25-21 and tying the match 1-1 going into the break.
3rd SET | The Citadel never trailed in the third set and opened it up with a commanding 12-3 lead. The Bulldogs never looked back and led by as many as 14, capturing the set 25-12 and taking a 2-1 lead.
4th SET | With their backs against the wall, the Mocs responded. After trailing 10-7 in the must-win set, UTC went on a roll, finishing the set on an 18-6 run, earning a 25-16 set win and forcing a deciding fifth set.
5th SET | The winner-take-all set was full of anticipation from both teams. The set was tied 3-3, 4-4, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8 and 9-9 before any separation occurred. The Bulldogs went on a 4-1 run from that point to lead the set 13-10. The Mocs responded when they had to and put up the next four points to take a 14-13 lead and push the set to match point. The Citadel fought off two match points, 14-13 and 15-14, before UTC blocked the final attack and won the set 17-15 and the match 3-2.
"This is a tough group," added Filar. "They found ways to make plays when their backs were against the wall. It wasn't super sharp, but it was a great team win."
Chattanooga out-hit The Citadel .180-.164, out-blocked them 11.0-10.0 and set a new season-high in digs with 98, including four Mocs with double-digit digs.
Miranda Elpers posted a kill-dig double-double, her eighth of the season, with a team-leading 15 kills and a third-best 14 digs. Kristy Wieser and Dani Szczepanski followed behind with 14 and 12 kills, respectively, while hitting at a combined .321 percentage. Emily Plumlee finished with seven kills and Allie Davenport with six. Davenport registered five of her six kills in the fifth set.
The pair of junior setters in Lauren Greenspoon and Madison Bergren both posted assist-dig double-doubles as Greenspoon finished with a match-high 34 assists and a season-high 16 digs. Bergren added 16 assists while tying a career-high with 14 digs. Starting libero Rachel Petkosh led the team with 22 digs tonight.
Szczepanski picked up 7.0 total blocks and now has totaled 31.0 total blocks in the last six matches, averaging 1.30 blocks/set. Plumlee added 4.0 total blocks while Eden Murray followed with 3.0.
Chattanooga will finish up their road schedule of the 2016 season with a trip to Spartanburg, S.C., on Friday, Nov. 4, to face Wofford at 6 p.m. They'll travel to Cullowhee, N.C., on Saturday to play Western Carolina at 7 p.m. Full previews and coverage information as well as the Chattanooga volleyball weekly notes can be found on GoMocs.com leading up to those matches.