Brunswick, Ga. – The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball team won both of its matches on the opening day of the Halloween Smashtown Invitational on Friday at Howard Coffin Gym.
The No. 25-ranked Mariners (26-1) blanked Wesleyan College 3-0 in its opening contest of the tournament before also knocking off South Dakota School of Mines and Tech 3-1 in its second contest.
With the two victories, the Mariners have now equaled their win total from last season when they finished 26-11 to set a school record for victories.
The Mariners will look to set a new high mark Saturday when they round out tournament play at 2 p.m. against Southeastern, which won 3-0 Friday night over Montreat. The tournament resumes Saturday with matches at 10 a.m. and noon prior to Coastal Georgia's match. A 4 p.m. contest will round out the event.
In their tournament opener against Wesleyan, the Mariners won the first two sets by 25-9 before taking the third set 25-14 to close out the match.
Coastal Georgia rested several players in the match including sophomore setter Cayley Meiners, junior outside hitters Emma Anderson and Kara Neisen and senior outside hitter Holly Hammer.
For the match, the Mariners pounded out 43 kills in 89 attacks while making just eight errors to hit .393 as a team.
Meantime, the Wolves, who drove south from Macon for the tournament, managed just 19 kills in 93 chances and hit just .086 for the contest. Wesleyan had 11 errors in the three sets.
For the Mariners, Allie Shannon registered 13 kills in 23 swings with no errors and hit .565. Amanda Kline followed with nine kills while Na'Chanelle Brown and Maddie Bounds both posted seven in the win.
Freshman Emily Reynolds, who played the whole match, recorded 35 kills for the Mariners. She also had two of the team's seven service aces and four digs.
Maddie Bounds topped the Coastal Georgia defense with 21 digs. Jennifer Johnson had nine in the opening set before sitting out the final two frames. Josie Corbett added seven digs.
In their second match, the Mariners were challenged by South Dakota SMT. After taking the first set 25-14, the Mariners dropped the second frame 25-22. They rebounded to win the third and fourth stanzas over the Hardrockers by 25-18 and 25-16.
Coastal Georgia finished the four-set match with 56 kills and 16 errors in 139 attempts to hit .288 for the contest. Anderson led the squad with 15 kills in 37 swings, Rachel Amudson followed with 12 in 29 attempts and Shannon added 11 in 25 attacks. Meiners totaled 44 assists.
The Hardrockers finished with 46 kills while making 29 errors in 145 attacks and hit just .117 for the match.
The Mariners made it tough on their attack with strong defense. Coastal Georgia had 63 digs including 17 by Neisen and 16 by Johnson. Coastal Georgia also finished with 22 block assists for 11 total blocks. Bounds and Shannon both finished with five block assists while Rachel Amundson had four and Anderson three.
