MONTEVALLO, Ala. – Playing an incredibly tight contest, the UAH volleyball team earned a hard-fought victory over North Carolina-Pembroke on Saturday afternoon at Montevallo. The 3-1 neutral-site win moves UAH to 7-12 on the year while the Lady Braves fall to 10-12.
A sign of what was to come in the match, the first set was a close affair. UAH's opponent recorded the first three points in the set and held the three-point advantage again at 9-6 before the Lady Chargers went on an 8-2 run to grab their own three-point lead at 14-11. Helping key the run, Stacey Sargent recorded three of her 13 kills during the stretch.
The first set swayed back towards Pembroke's favor, and the Lady Braves were on the verge of closing out the frame with a 24-21 lead, but capitalizing on three miscues, the Blue and White were able to come all the way back as Angela Thurmond put the set's last ball away to give UAH a 26-24 victory.
Thanks to an 8-0 run in the middle of the second stanza, there was little excitement as the Lady Chargers cruised to a 25-15 victory to take a 2-0 lead in the match. UAH hit at .312 clip in the set while forcing the Lady Braves to hit in negative numbers at -.136.
Returning to the nail-bitingly close action, the third set featured an amazing 20 ties.
With the frame tied at 22-22, UNC-Pembroke committed a pair of errors to put UAH on the precipice of capturing the match, but the opposition was able to pick up a pair of points to knot things up at 24-all. From that point, the Lady Chargers had four more opportunities to end the match while also staving off two points that would have given then Lady Braves the frame, but a pair of UAH errors at 30-30 allowed Pembroke to take the frame 32-30.
It appeared that the momentum generated by the thrilling set victory for the Lady Braves would translate into an easy fourth set for them as they built up as much as a 19-12 lead, but the UAH side had different thoughts.
A 10-2 run that featured four kills from Jessica Ruple placed UAH in a 22-22 tie, and the Blue and White scored three of the next four points to end the set on a 13-3 run to take the set 25-23 and win the match 3-1.
Ruple ended the day as UAH's offensive leader, registering 17 kills, and she added 14 digs for a double-double. Hitting at an impressive rate, Sargent's 13 kills came on 24 attempts while she committed just two errors for a blistering .458 attack percentage. Kelsey Williams added 12 kills to round out those in double figures for the Lady Chargers, and Kelly Wilson set a season-high mark with 50 assists.
Leading the way defensively, Kaeli McCaghren recorded a team-high 17 digs, and Shelby League and Sargent joined her and Ruple in recording double-digits in kills. League tallied 13 and Sargent added 12 as she also recorded the double-double.
Angela Thurmond led the team at the net as she recorded five total blocks, while Williams recorded four blocks on the day.
UAH will continue play on the road on Tuesday as it returns to Gulf South Conference play by travelling to Christian Brothers. The match is slated to start at 7 p.m.
