Walters State defeats University of Charleston JV, falls to Cumberland University JV

MORRISTOWN, TN – Walters State split a tri-match on Wednesday evening, sweeping University of Charleston JV 3-0 (25-14, 25-11, 25-22) before falling to Cumberland University JV in the night cap 3-1 (25-19, 19-25, 25-21, 25-19). 

With the split, the Lady Senators moved to 8-8 on the season. 

"We just have to continue to improve and get better," Walters State coach Megan Blaylock said. "There are still some things that we need to keep working on. Obviously good to get a win in the first match, but we have to keep getting after it in practice and work on the things we keep struggling with." 

In the first match against the University of Charleston JV, the Lady Senators took control early, going up 10-4 in the first set. The lead grew to 16-9 later on when Mackenzie Sweigart had a block and forced a timeout from Charleston. 

Coming out of the timeout, Jordan Moore had a kill and then Sweigart had another. Back-to-back kills from Takiya Curry closed the set out at 25-14.

In set two, the Lady Senators once again went up early with a 5-2 lead after a Moore kill. Walters State grew that lead to 14-6 and forced a Charleston timeout after Faith Heskett and Taylor Spears had aces. 

From there, it was all Walters State as they ended the set at 25-11 with two kills and an ace from Rachel Miller. 

The third set was the closest as Charleston got an early lead at 5-3 before Walters State tied the set at nine and took the lead on a Haylee Richardson kill. Walters State never trailed from there as Sweigart, Miller, Richardson and Maddie Rockrohr all had kills. The Lady Senators closed it out with a 25-22 third set win. 

In match number two of the day, Walters State fell behind and struggled to catch back up. In the first set, the Lady Senators got up early on a Sweigart kill, but Cumberland JV took a 3-2 lead and never trailed again. 

Walters State showed fight down 15-8 as they rallied off four straight points, including back-to-back aces from Hannah Freeman, and then made it 16-14. However, Cumberland found their footing and scored the last three points of the set to take it 25-19.

Set number two was more to Walters State's play as they took a 5-4 lead and never trailed again. It was a team effort from the Lady Senators as they fought off a 13-13 tie by scoring seven straight points. During that run, Mattie Davis had two kills while Miller had a kill and Sidney Keck had two blocks.

Cumberland cut the lead to 20-16, but Walters State would not let them play back into it as Rockrohr had a kill late that clinched the set at 25-19. 

Walters State tried to build off the momentum but fell behind early in set three. The two teams tied at three on a Rockrohr kill, four on a Rockrohr kill, five and six before Cumberland scored six straight to make it 12-6. Walters State eventually cut the lead to one at 13-12 on a Curry kill but three straight points from Cumberland made it 16-12. 

Not going down without a fight, Walters State tied the set at 18 on an ace from Bella Webb. Webb then gave the Lady Senators the lead at 19-18 with her second straight ace. The two teams would trade points before Cumberland scored five of the last six points to take a 2-1 lead. 

In the final set, the two teams once again traded points to start before Cumberland took a commanding 15-9 lead. The lead stayed around five points from there as the Lady Senators never could take the momentum back. The Lady Senators had it a 21-17 before Cumberland closed the match out. 

Up Next:

Walters State will be back in action on Wednesday, Oct. 5, on the road against Cleveland State. The match is set to begin at 6:30 p.m.

"We have a week before our next match so we're just going to get back to practice and get healthy and fix what needs to be fixed," Blaylock said. "We've got three straight region matches coming up, so we need to be ready to go for all three of them." 

Rob Harvey

Walters State Community College

Sports Information Director

Cell: (423) 779-8880

Email: sportsinfo@ws.edu

Website: www.ws.edu/athletics