Chattanooga volleyball was able to bring home a 3-1 win on Tuesday night in the team’s make up match at Furman, keeping the Mocs in contention for a late push up the Southern Conference standings as UTC heads into its final two matches of the regular season.
The Mocs (16-13, 6-8 SoCon) were dominant against the Paladins, as a well-rounded team effort that was spearheaded by Chard’e Vanzandt helped push the Mocs past Furman in only four sets of action. The result guarantees that the Mocs will at the very least finish the 2024 season with a winning record, something they’ve now done in all three years that Julie Torbett Thomas has been with the program.
“Big win at the end of a long road trip,” Torbett Thomas said.
“Chard’e was amazing. She hit from everywhere on the court. Paige (Gallentine) and Elaine (Redman) anchored us and did a great job defensively. Kynli (Kirkendoll) was dominant blocking. We had all aspects of our game on tonight.”
The Mocs were able to strike first in a dogfight of a first set in Greenville, with UTC stealing away a 25-23 set win after a late 7-3 scoring run closed out the frame. As Vanzandt struggled with just one kill in the first set, grad student Erin Wyatt picked up the slack for the Mocs by providing seven of her eventual 12 kills in the opening frame to help get Chattanooga on the board first.
Galvanized by their strong finish to set one, the Mocs picked up right where they had left off to open set two, building up a 16-11 lead on the Paladins. Furman was able to eventually close that gap, but only briefly as senior Chard’e Vanzandt hit the gas on the offensive side of the ball, supplying UTC with an offensive burst that propelled the Mocs to a 25-21 set victory, putting Chattanooga up 2-0.
The Mocs dropped their guard in the third, allowing Furman to cleanly take a 25-16 result to cut into UTC’s two-set lead. Not wanting the Paladins to hang around any longer than they already had, the Mocs steamrolled their way through the fourth set on the shoulders of Vanzandt, picking up the most lobsided set win of the night to clinch the match.
With the Mocs claiming set four 25-15, UTC sealed their 3-1 victory over the Paladins, keeping Chattanooga’s hopes for a late surge up the SoCon standings alive in the process.
After the result, the Mocs remain in the No. 7 spot and have guaranteed that the seventh seed would be the absolute lowest that the team could end up. Having defeated Furman, the Mocs are now just half a match back from the Paladins in the battle for the No. 6 seed.
Not only that, but the Mocs also stand one match back from fifth-place Samford, a team that the Mocs would have the tiebreaker over. If the Mocs go two-for-two in wins over the team’s last two matches this weekend, UTC could even jump all the way up into the No. 3 seed spot with some losses by ETSU and The Citadel.
Suffice to say that the Southern Conference standings remain wide open as UTC heads into the final weekend of regular season action.
Looking at Chattanooga’s stat leaders on the night, Vanzandt’s incredible offensive performance saw the Houston, Texas, native lead the team with 18 kills on a blistering .410 hitting percentage. Sydney Jackwin (16 kills) and Erin Wyatt (12 kills) joined Vanzandt as double-digit killers.
Jackwin would also add 14 digs to her evening, marking her 14th double-double of the season, a team-high total. She was joined by Elaine Redman in the double-double department, with Reman dropping 46 assists and a career-high tying 22 digs. Paige Gallentine would wrap up the match with a team-high 23 digs on the night.
In terms of blocks, freshman Kynli Kirkendoll paced the Mocs with five blocks in the win. She was followed closely by four-block performances by Erin Wyatt and Marcelle Baez-Carlo.
The Mocs will now close out their regular season this Friday and Saturday on the road, starting first on Friday, November 15 matchup with Western Carolina at 6 p.m. ET. UTC’s season will then wrap up on Saturday, November 16 at 6 p.m. ET with an in-state rivalry clash against ETSU in Johnson City.