Gainesville, Ga. - The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball team pulled out a 3-2 victory Friday night in their Southern States Athletic Conference opener at Brenau University.

With the five-set victory, the Mariners ran their record to 9-0 for the season. They opened the season by going 4-0 in both the Volley in the Mountains tournament hosted by Montreat (N.C.) College two weeks ago and the Mariner Invitational last week at Howard Coffin Gym

In their first eight matches, the Mariners had only played past three sets once, and that was last Saturday when they won 3-1 against Faulkner. Coastal Georgia had won its other seven matches by 3-0 scores, and one of those actually came last Friday in the home tournament when the Mariners topped the Golden Tigers 3-0.

In Friday's conference opener, Mariners got pushed to five sets, though, before putting away the home team.

"I'm proud of how we stuck it out," said Coastal Georgia coach Jeff Huebner. "The great teams find a way, and tonight we did just that. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't close in the fifth set."

The Mariners took the opening set 25-22 and Brenau won the second set 25-23. Coastal Georgia then won the third set 25-16, but the Tigers would win the fourth set 27-25 to extend the match to the full five sets.

For the match, Emma Anderson and Maddie Bounds led the team with 16 and 15 kills, respectively . Bounds also had five total blocks and two aces. Rachel Amundson registered 10 kills in the win.

Defensively, Kara Neisen and Jennifer Johnson both recorded 25 digs. Johnson also served four aces.

Cayley Meiners assisted on 52 kills for the Mariners.

Coastal Georgia will play at Dalton State on Saturday in another SSAC counter. Dalton is competing in the league for the first time this season.