EAST GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T hitters have a luxury that most college volleyball Division I don’t have.
The Aggies have two excellent lifters, both with a knack for knowing where to place the ball for their hitters. Senior Setter Edie Brewer and second year setter Addy Warfield showed this skill Thursday at the Moore Gymnasium. They took volleyball Aggies to their seventh consecutive victory with a sweep of three sets (25-7, 9, 10) of the South Carolina State Bulldogs in the MEAC game.
Brewer ended the day with 18 assists, while Warfield contributed 16 assists. Both are solid defensive players, as Brewer totaled eight digs and a solo block, and Warfield had six digs. Often, when Warfield is being defined, Brewer also acts as a great hitter. She ended up with six deaths, with no attack errors and posted a hit percentage of 0.857. To top it off, she added four service aces.
“Our lifters did a good job of moving the ball and our attackers were very aggressive,” said the NC A&T coach. Hal Clifton. “Overall, it was a very good day for the Aggies.”
It really was. The Aggies (7-0, 7-1 MEAC) hit 0.438 for the match after hitting 0.579 in Set 1 and 0.545 in Set 2. Junior Fatimah Shabazz, who leads the conference in percentage of correct answers, led the way with 11 deaths, only two attack errors and a percentage of correct answers of 0.562.
Second year Mallory Porcher he also had a good night of hitting, ending with a percentage of 0.600 in seven deaths and an attack error. Junior Andrea Laboy-Rivera led the Aggies in the back row with 10 excavations.
“I am very proud of how the team competed today,” said Clifton. “It was a great group effort. I thought we played well on the net, forcing the state of South Carolina to mix up their blows. Our side game was very fast today and that was a good thing to see.”
The Aggies ended the Bulldogs for the third time this season. The Aggies ran a 13-1 run in the first set to take the lead 23-6. After a Maya Rembert killed the Bulldogs, a slaughter by Brewer and juniors Amalie Rupertova finished the first set.
Brewer led the Aggies in Set 1 with five deaths and no attack errors in six attempts. She also had four assists in Set 1 to go along with Warfield’s six.
Set 2 saw the Aggies jump to a 10-3 advantage before the advantage increased to double digits, 15-5, in Rupertova’s death. SCSU (0-5, 0-5 MEAC) asked for a timeout, but things did not improve much.
The Aggies had a 21-7 advantage in Porcher’s death. Second year Arianna Mackey ended the set with a kill off of a Warfield pass. Porcher ended the set with four deaths and no attack errors in six attempts.
The Bulldogs reached seven, 17-10, in an attack error by Aggies in the third set. NC A&T started scoring the final eight points of the set to end the set and the match. Junior Macenzie Richards had two deaths during the race. Shabazz had six deaths, with no attack errors in seven attempts in the third set.
SCSU had only six deaths on Thursday and posted a negative hit percentage of 0.195.
“I am very proud of the mental aspect of the game and how our players continue to raise their IQ in volleyball,” said Clifton.
Before departure, the Aggies paid tribute to the elderly Edie Brewer and Courteney Pitt to achieve the respective milestones. Brewer received two commemorative volleyballs for passing 2,000 career assists and 100 career service aces. Pitt received a commemorative volleyball for hitting 1,000 career deaths.
The Aggies and Bulldogs play again at 1 pm, Friday, March 12, at Moore Gym.