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NEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Privateers volleyball team (12-11) matched a season-high in aces and relied on a strong attack early to take a 3-2 win (27-25, 23-25, 25-20, 22-25, 15-7) against the UT-Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (8-14) on Monday at the Human Performance Center.
In the fifth set, the Privateers ran to an early 7-3 lead and never let up. The Privateers had kills from three different players after that point as part of a balanced attack, which saw three players record double digit kills.
Takierra Boughton recorded the last two points of the match on kills to seal the win and push the Privateers to 3-0 in five-set matches.
The Privateers faced a six-point deficit and were trailing very late by a score of 23-18. With
Lauren Levy on serve though, the Privateers rallied back on the strength of an efficient attack in the opening set to take a 24-23 lead.
The Vaqueros staved off two set points thanks to kills by Alisha Watson, but the Privateers eventually won the first set after an attack error on the UT-Rio Grande Valley side. New Orleans hit .600 in the first set.
New Orleans raced out to an early 11-4 lead after their first set comeback. This time, it was the Vaqueros who turned the tide, rallying back to tie the set at 12-12. There were seven ties and five lead changes in the set, but the Privateers edged back ahead to a 22-18 lead. However, the Vaqueros stormed back behind Bojana Mitrovic who had 10 kills in the second set alone including the set clincher.
Out of the halftime break, the Privateers were able to rely on the service game of
Samantha Uline and five blocks to take a 2-1 lead. New Orleans tallied five total blocks on the set and finished off the set with the last of their five blocks. The Privateers had just three blocks in the first two sets combined.
New Orleans fell into an eight-point hole, trailing 18-10 but rallied back to tie the set at 19-19 thanks in part to the service game of
Milica Zmiric who wound up with three aces on the night. After the score was tied, the Vaqueros came back to score six of the next seven points of the set to send the match to a deciding fifth set.
Cara Sander (13), Boughton (11), and
Blessing Dunn (10) all contributed double figures in kills.
Keke Irby had nine kills and four total blocks while
Kaitlyn Grice added eight kills and six blocks.
Rondolyn Bryant had six kills to add to the offensive effort.
Celeste Ramirez had 32 assists and eight digs. Levy led the way in digs with 16 and the Privateers also racked up 13 service aces. Uline led the way individually with five aces while Zmiric and Sander had three aces each. New Orleans tied a season high for aces in a match with 13, matching the same mark they achieved against Grambling on Sept. 19.
Mitrovic led all hitters with 25 kills in 56 attempts, but also had seven receiving errors. Alisha Watson added 12 kills while Alexandra Ecker posted nine. Dubravka Vukoja had 49 assists and eight digs. Briana Shannon led the team in digs with 15 and Haley Durham had seven total blocks (three solo, four assist) on the night.
New Orleans will hit the road to take on Abilene Christian on Thursday.
To keep up with the latest New Orleans volleyball news, follow the team on Twitter
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