FOLEY, Ala. – The Coastal Carolina volleyball team saw its 2021 season come to an end on Saturday night, as the Chanticleers fell to the No. 1-seeded (West) Texas State Bobcats in straight sets, 25-22, 25-16, and 26-24, in the semifinals of the 2021 Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Championship Tournament in Foley, Ala.
 
The Chanticleers finished the season at 19-9 overall, including going 12-2 at home inside the HTC Center.
 
Coastal struggled to find its offensive rhythm for the match, hitting just .154 overall as a team as the Bobcats totaled 47 kills to the Chants' 32.
 
The Chants had 10.0 team blocks, one more than the Bobcats' 9.0, and also had five service aces compared to Texas State's three. However, Texas State held the advantage in service errors with six to the Chants' eight and in digs with 45 to 26.
 
Texas State, which had a 72 percent side-out percentage, hit over .255 for each set, while Coastal hit .200 or lower in each of the three sets in the loss.
 
Four Chants had five kills or more in the match led by super senior Ani Bozdeva and her team-high eight kills. Fellow All-Sun Belt Conference selection Cheyenne Jones added six kills, while both Ilse Sinnige and Jasmine Rivest posted five spikes each.
 
Junior setter Brigitta Petrenko passed out 13 set assists and had two service aces, while fellow setter Marija Borcic had 12 helpers and one dig.
 
Libero Lina Perugini had five digs, while graduate transfer Doris Carter finished with a team-high 10 digs. Both Jones and Sinnige had four total blocks to lead the Chants at the net.
 
Texas State's Emily DeWalt had a match-high 35 set assists, with 28 of her assists going to the duo of Jada Gardner and Caitlan Buettner who finished with 15 and 13 kills each, respectively.
 
The Bobcats' Kayla Granado had a team-high 10 digs, while at the net Tyeranee Scott finished with a match-high five total blocks.
 
What has become an annual matchup at the Sun Belt Conference Championship Tournament, the two teams started out the first set going back-and-forth as the first game was close throughout with 10 ties and one lead change.
 
Coastal struck first to take a 3-0 lead on back-to-back kills from Bozdeva and a Bobcat attack error.
 
Despite a service error by the Chants, CCU was able to stay out in front of the Bobcats and extend its lead to 7-3 on a Jones' spike.
 
However, Texas State ran off four-straight points to get back into the set and tie the match up at 7-7 on a Gardner kill.
 
The two teams would see three more ties (8-8, 9-9, and 12-12) before the Bobcats would take their first lead of the opening set at 13-12 on a Coastal attack error.
 
Texas State would lead by as much as two over the next several rallies, as Coastal would tie the frame up six more times, but was unable to get the go-ahead point.
 
With the set tied up at 22-22, the Bobcats got kills from Scott, Gardner, and Brooke Johnson to close out the first set with a 25-22 win.
 
Again, neither team could separate itself from the other at the start of the second set, as Coastal led by as much as three at 6-3. Yet again, the Bobcats clawed their way back into the set, going on a 6-2 run to take a 9-8 lead on a block from Tessa Marshall and DeWalt.
 
The Chants closed the gap to one at 10-9 on a Bozdeva kill but was unable to slow down the Texas State offensive attack that took a 16-12 lead on a Buettner kill and then used a 6-0 surge to take a 22-13 lead on kills from Scott, Gardner, and Scott again.
 
CCU took advantage of back-to-back Texas State miscues and a kill by Madison Lowery to get to 16 but ran out of time as Gardner put the set away with a kill to give the top-seeded Bobcats the 25-16 second-set victory.
 
For the third consecutive set, the Chants scored first, taking a 2-0 lead on a Sinnige kill and a Petrenko service ace.
 
However, the Bobcats scored the next six points to take a 6-2 lead on a Buettner kill before a Sinnige spike ended the run and put the score at 6-3 in favor of the Bobcats.
Kills by Jones and Carter cut the Texas State lead to four twice, at 8-4 and 9-5, however, the Chants couldn't string together a series of points and found themselves down seven at 18-11.
 
A block by Christina Nance and Carter, followed by another block from the tandem of Nance and Rivest two plays later put the Chants down five at 19-14 before the Teal and Bronze got three consecutive kills by Rivest and Bozdeva to cut the lead to two at 20-18 to force a Texas State timeout.
 
The two teams traded points out of the break to put the score at 23-21 when a block by Scott and Janell Fitzgerald gave Texas State match point at 24-21.
 
An attack error by Fitzgerald, a solo block from Carter, and a service ace by Bozdeva kept the Chants alive and tied the set up at 24-24.
 
The next two points went in favor of the Bobcats, as kills from Scott and Buettner put the match away to give Texas State the 26-24 third-set win and earn the 3-0 sweep.
 
Coastal posted 18-plus wins for the eighth time in the last two seasons, while four Chanticleers earned All-Sun Belt honors in Bozdeva (first team), Jones (Newcomer of the Year; second team), Carter (second team), and Petrenko (second team).
 
Head coach Jozsef Forman picked up his 200th career win at CCU during the season, while three Chants in Bozdeva, Carter, and Jones all recorded their 1,000th-collegiate career kills. Petrenko and Borcic each surpassed the 2,000-career assists mark, while Perugini recorded her 1,000th-career dig in 2021.

For complete coverage of CCU volleyball, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalVball (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram), or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at www.GoCCUsports.com.