The Chattanooga Mocs volleyball team held off a strong Citadel rally to claim their first five set (25-21, 25-22, 25-27, 22-25, 15-11) victory of the season during Senior Day in Maclellan Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.
The Mocs improve to 13-13 overall and 6-6 in the SoCon following the win. The Citadel falls to 8-22, 2-11 in conference action.
Chattanooga seemed to be in control after earning set wins in the first and second sets to take a 2-0 lead into the break, and also holding two match point opportunities in the third.
The Citadel fought off both points and notched set wins in the third and fourth to push it to a fifth.
UTC trailed 8-4 in the fifth at the switch and ended the match on an 11-3 run to take a 15-11 set win and a 3-2 match win. The Mocs were 0-5 entering the match in decisive set matches this season.
Chattanooga attacked at a .268 percentage as a team, the second-highest mark all season (Oct. 7 vs. Mercer). Four different Mocs finished with double-digit kills. Ally Ford led the way with 19 (.295) while Dani Szczepanski followed with 14 (.333) and Emily Plumlee and Miranda Elpers finished with 13 (.357) and 12 (.151), respectively.
The pair of veteran setters in Lauren Greenspoon and Madison Bergren shined on their 'Senior Day'. Greenspoon finished with a match-high 30 assists while Bergren followed with 29.
Defensively, the Mocs won the dig battle 77 to 72 and out-blocked the opposition 11.0 to 9.0. Elpers paced the defense with 18 digs to complete a double-double while Greenspoon and Megan Kaufman added 13 and 12 digs, respectively. Plumlee totaled a match-high 7.0 blocks, doing so on her birthday.
Chattanooga heads to Macon, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala., next weekend for matches against Mercer and Samford. Friday's match against Mercer and Saturday's match at Samford are slated for 6 p.m.