CONWAY, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina volleyball team looks to stay perfect against Georgia State and Georgia Southern in their two-game season series on Friday, Nov. 8 and Saturday, Nov. 9.
The action gets started on Friday as the Chanticleers travel to Georgia State for a 6:30 p.m. ET scheduled start at the GSU Sports Arena and then will be followed by Saturday's match at Georgia Southern at the Hanner Fieldhouse with the first serve scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
History
CCU defeated both of their opponents at home earlier in the season at The HTC Center to start Sun Belt play.
Coastal swept Georgia Southern on Sept. 27 by the score of 25-16, 25-7, and 25-19 as sophomore Anett Nemeth recorded a match-high of 10 kills and freshman setter Brigitta Petrenko had match-highs of 26 assists and four service aces.
Just two days later, the Chanticleers were pushed to four sets as they defeated Georgia State 25-19, 23-25, 25-19, and 25-14. Nemeth led CCU with a double-double, 16 kills, and 11 digs, while junior Kyla Manning followed with 13 kills and a team-best .524 hitting percentage.
Coastal Carolina
The Chanticleers come into this weekend's pair of matches, losing three of their last four contests. CCU sits in third-place of the Sun Belt East after they split a pair of five-set matches last weekend on the road at South Alabama and Troy.
On Friday night against South Alabama, the Chants grinded out the match victory (21-25, 17-25, 25-20, 25-17, 15-9) with a trio of hitters with double-digit putaways. Nemeth led the match with 21 kills and junior Ani Bozdeva and junior Kyla Manning each had 18 and 12, respectively. The Chants hit .301 (63-of-146, 19 errors) over the five sets but was highlighted by the fifth and final set as the squad had a .714 (11-of-12, 1 error) hitting percentage.
The following night at Troy, CCU dropped the match 25-21, 20-25, 25-16, 25-22, and 15-17 as Nemeth added 30 or more kills for the third time in her career. The Coastal Carolina sophomore broke the school record with a match-high 33 kills, besting her previous career-high by one kill that was set just one week earlier against UT Arlington.
Bozdeva added 11 kills in the loss, but no other Chant player was able to break the double-digit kill barrier as the team was held to hitting percentage of .269 (56-of-130, 24 errors). The Razlog, Bulgaria native had back-to-back 10 plus kills for the first time since she achieved the mark in a trio of matches earlier season against Albany, Towson, and Youngstown State.
Georgia State
The Panthers go into their match against Coastal as they split a pair of matches at Little Rock and Arkansas State. GSU sits in fifth-place in the Sun Belt East with a 4-8 record in conference play and 8-15 overall.
On Friday as the Chanticleers defeated South Alabama, Georgia State lost a heartbreaking five-set match (24-26, 16-25, 28-26, 25-22, 12-15) at Little Rock. Leah Wilcox had a career-high 22 kills. Fellow Panther players, Sydney Stroud and Madelyn Ott assisted the Panther attack with 10 and 11 kills, respectively. Libero Lauren Bandera recorded 20 or digs in a match for the ninth time this season with 25.
Just a day later, GSU salvaged their weekend as they picked up a straight-sets (25-21, 25-19, 25-21 ) victory at Arkansas State as it snapped their four-match losing streak.
In the match, Leah Wilcox posted a team-high 12 kills and Stroud assisted with 11 of her own. Setter Jordan Shoemaker led the Panthers with 16 assists while fellow setter Kampbell Hehr dished out 13.
Georgia Southern
The Eagles also split a pair of matches last weekend with Little Rock and Arkansas State as they head into the weekend in sixth-place of the Sun Belt East with a 2-10 conference record and 7-16 overall.
Georgia Southern started last weekend's pair of matches with a win over Arkansas State in five-sets as came back from two sets down, to break an eight-match losing streak to the Red Wolves. Carly Turner tallied a career-high 20 kills, libero Landon Jones dug 22 balls, and Madison Brown dished out 44 assists.
The Eagles held Arkansas State to a -.018 hitting percentage over the last three sets of the contest to win 16-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-20, and 15-11.
On Saturday, Georgia Southern came out flat against Little Rock and dropped three consecutive sets (25-22, 25-16, 25-15) with Turner leading the way on the offensive side with 12 kills with a hitting percentage of .455. No other Eagle player had more than five kills as the Trojans held GS to a hitting percentage of .186 (33-of-102, 14 errors).
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.
