CONWAY - The Coastal Carolina volleyball team returns to action at The HTC Center and will play matches on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 12:30 pm ET, versus Troy and South Alabama, respectively.
History
Two weeks ago, the Chanticleers split the weekend's matches on the road against the same two teams.
On Nov. 1, CCU outlasted South Alabama in five sets (21-25, 17-25, 25-20, 25-17, 15-9) as sophomore Anett Nemeth had a match-high 21 kills and freshman setter Brigitta Petrenko had a match-high 48 assists. The teal and bronze held the Jaguars to a .191 hitting percentage while recording 10 blocks.
Junior middle hitter Hannah Emerson had a team-high three blocks in the victory while libero Lina Perugini recorded a match-high 24 digs. It was the fifth time this season the freshman had posted 20 or more digs in a match.
Just two days later, the Chants took the first and third sets but were outlasted in the fifth set by Troy (25-21, 20-25, 25-16, 22-25, 15-17) in a 3-2 loss.
Nemeth had a school-record 33 kills but her offense was not enough to carry the Chanticleers to the win.
The Trojan duo of Ashley Guenveur and Halston Hillier combined to hit .338 with 21 and 15 kills, respectively. Setter Amara Anderson led the match with 55 assists.
Coastal Carolina
The Chanticleers picked up two wins in the matches at Georgia State and Georgia Southern last weekend and regained first-place in the Sun Belt East Division to improve to 21-5 overall and 11-3 in the conference.
The Chants cruised to a 3-0 sweep of Georgia State on Friday night with Nemeth leading the way with her sixth double-double of the season. The Pecel, Hungary native tallied 21 kills and 10 digs. At the net, Coastal Carolina kept the Panthers to a .128 hitting percentage with 22 errors. Redshirt sophomore Christina Nance led the Chants with 3.5 blocks for the match.
Just one day later, Georgia Southern proved to be a tougher match for CCU. The Chants were able to pull off a 3-1 win (25-20, 25-20, 22-25, 25-13) and moved back into first-place in the East Division with South Alabama defeating Troy the night before.
Coastal was without Nemeth over the final two sets but was led by junior captain Kyla Manning who rallied the team with 13 kills in the win. Redshirt senior Mariia Levanova pitched in with the second career double-double of her career and second of the season with 10 kills and a career-high 12 digs.
Petrenko's serve game single-handedly put away the Jaguars in the fourth set. The Eger, Hungary native had a match-high five service aces but recorded four in the last set for the match victory.
Troy and South Alabama
The Trojans and Jags played Nov. 8 as South Alabama was able to pick up their second win of the season and fourth consecutive over Troy, this time by the score of 3-1 (25-18, 17-25, 25-22, 25-18).
Iva Durdanovic led South Alabama with a match-high 16 kills and a .538 hitting percentage. Leading Sun Belt leading hitter, Kelley Hartman was held to a .115 but did manage 10 kills and four blocks.
Troy's Cheyenne Hayes and Caitlin Cooper combined for 31 kills but were held to a combined .200 hitting percentage with 14 errors.
As a team, the Jaguars held Troy to a team hitting percentage of .175 and tallied 14 blocks.
With the win, South Alabama moved to second-place, in front of Troy in the Sun Belt East Division with an 11-3 Sun Belt record and improved to 20-8 overall. The loss dropped Troy to third-place in the division at 10-4 in conference play and to 21-6 overall on the season.
Before Sunday's match versus South Alabama at 12:30 p.m. ET, the Chanticleers will take time to honor their lone senior on this year's team, Mariia Levanova.
For complete coverage of CCU volleyball, follow the Chanticleers on social media at @CoastalVball (twitter), @GoCCUSports (Instagram), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (facebook) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.
