NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Privateers volleyball team will be taking their longest trip of the regular season when they head to the Towson Tiger Invitational in Maryland this weekend. Three matches will be up against Towson, Kent State and Stonehill.
The Privateers will face Kent State on Friday at Hill Field House, home of Morgan State, where Head Coach
Ashley Preston carved out a Hall of Fame career. Matches against Towson and Stonehill will be featured on Saturday. The match against the host Tigers at 10 a.m. will be broadcast on FloCollege.
New Orleans went 1-2 in the opening weekend at the Sawyer Camillo Memorial Classic. The Privateers ended the weekend by pushing the host Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns to five sets. New Orleans averaged 14.8 digs per set and had 73 against the Cajuns.
Ella Moss led all defenders with 33 digs including 16 of those against Louisiana.
Peyton Cole and
Celia Mbaya each had 29 digs over the weekend in Lafayette.
Lani Alleman had 21 digs in the Privateers' first three matches.
As a unit, the Privateer defense held their last two opponents of the weekend to a combined attack percentage of .150. Texas Southern and Louisiana combined for 53 attack errors against the Privateer defense.
Offensively,
Courtney Roundtree led all hitters in kills during the opening weekend with 31.
Alessandra Meoni added 20 kills while Mbaya,
Laura Piva and
Vanae Sapp combined for47 kills.
New Orleans has no prior history against any of the three schools they will be squaring off against. This will be the first ever meeting against all three opponents on the volleyball court.
ABOUT THE OPPONENTS
Towson was picked third in the Colonial Athletic Association preseason poll. Head Coach Don Metil earned his 500
th win last week when the Tigers (1-2) defeated Old Dominion. Taylor Pagan and Erin Brothers co-led the Tigers' attack with 31 kills apiece in the opening weekend.
Kent State (0-3) relied heavily on the arm of Mackenzie McGuire in the opening weekend. McGuire had 62 total kills including 28 in the Golden Flashes' four-set loss to Texas Tech last weekend.
Stonehill (0-3) lost to Iona, Boston College and NJIT in the opening weekend of the 2025 campaign. The Skyhawks recently completed accelerated reclassification to full Div. I status and are eligible to compete in NCAA postseason beginning this fall. The Skyhawks are in the Northeast Conference.
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