Final Stats

CONWAY - The Chanticleer volleyball team split a pair of matches on Saturday, defeating North Florida in three sets in the morning before falling in five sets to Georgia Tech in the evening to close the 2016 Coastal Carolina Classic presented by Hilton.

Georgia Tech 3 - Coastal 2 (Saturday, 5 p.m.)
The Coastal Carolina volleyball team fell in its final match of the 2016 Coastal Carolina Classic presented by Hilton Saturday evening at the HTC Center as Georgia Tech rallied from a 2-1 match deficit to win the final two sets.

Both the Chanticleers and Yellow Jackets move to 9-3 overall for the season with the 17-25, 25-21, 18-25, 25-22, 15-12 result. The two sides additionally finish as co-champions of the tournament with a 2-1 record for the weekend, splitting a pair of matches against each other and both defeating North Florida.

The Chants held advantages in kills (63-60), hitting percentage (.232 - .218), assists (69-67) and digs (69-67), and committed just one more hitting error than the Yellow Jackets. Each side finished with nine blocks.

Georgia Tech's Teegan Van Gunst led all players with 26 kills at a .333 clip. Coastal's Annayka Legros followed with 20 kills while hitting .417. The Chants' senior middle blocker also had a team-high four blocks.

Coastal's Leah Hardeman notched a double-double with 12 kills and 11 digs, and Sara Boothe provided 31 assists.

Coastal controlled the game's first and third sets while playing Georgia Tech close in the fourth and fifth games.

The Chants opened the match hitting .344 en route to a 25-17 win in the first, and received four kills apiece from Legros and Tahleia Bishop. Coastal's hitting dipped to .026 in the second as Georgia Tech notched four blocks and Van Gunst powered the Yellow Jackets with six kills.

Coastal's attack returned to a .394 percentage in the third frame as the Chants held the lead from start to finish. Five different Chants registered multiple kills in the set.

Coastal played from behind for the majority of the fourth set, though took a brief 18-17 lead after a Dora Lulic service ace. Georgia Tech quickly regained the lead, however, using a 4-1 run to jump ahead 21-19. The margin proved to be too much for Coastal as the Yellow Jackets remained ahead by three points for the rest of the set.

Georgia Tech hit .429 in the final set and overcame two Coastal leads to finish off the match. Coastal held a slim 8-7 lead before the Yellow Jackets won four straight points to take the advantage. The Chants managed to even the set one final time at 11-11, but could not overtake the lead.

With its nonconference schedule completed, Coastal returns to action on Friday to make its Sun Belt Conference debut against Little Rock at the HTC Center. First serve is set for 6:30 p.m.

Coastal 3 - North Florida 0 (Saturday, 11 a.m.)
The Coastal Carolina volleyball team won its first of two matches Saturday, taking down North Florida in three sets at the HTC Center in the third match of the Coastal Carolina Classic presented by Hilton.

Coastal's 25-17, 25-20, 25-14 win over UNF improves the Chants to 2-0 in the tournament and 9-2 on the season. The Ospreys, meanwhile, fall to 7-6 after losing both of their matches in the tournament.

The Chants trailed just twice the entire match, both occurring early in the first set, and led in every statistical category.

Natasa Savovic paced the Chants with a 10 kill, 16 dig double-double. Her kill total led all players, while her dig total fell second only to the 17 digs of Carla Cahill. Savovic added a .231 hitting percentage and two blocks.

Leah Hardeman recorded six kills - just her second match this season with fewer than 10 - the third of which made her the 11th player in program history to reach 1,000 career kills.

Coastal held UNF to hitting percentages of .042, .057 and -.043 in the first, second and third sets, respectively.

The Chants used an impressive 9-0 run in the opening set to build a 21-14 lead, after which several UNF errors and kills from Savovic and Dora Lulic helped put the Chants ahead 1-0 in the match.

Coastal led 9-7 early in the middle frame before the Chants won seven straight points on the serve of Iva Mandic. Mandic had a pair of aces during that stretch, and the nine-point gap proved too much for UNF to overcome.

Savovic and Annayka Legros each tallied four kills in the final set as the Chants hit .171 to close the match. Coastal used another dominating run to take a large lead, capturing nine of 11 points to turn a close 8-5 set into a comfortable 17-7 advantage. CCU also received four blocks in the final set, two coming from Lulic and on each from Windisch, Hardeman and Legros.