Brunswick, Ga. – The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball team is headed back to Iowa to continue its quest for a national championship.
The No. 22 Mariners (31-3) clinched a spot at the final site of the 2015 NAIA Volleyball National Championship in Sioux City, Iowa, with a 3-1 victory over Southeastern (Fla.) on Saturday night at Howard Coffin Gym in an Opening Round match.
This will be the second trip for the Mariners to the final site. Coastal Georgia went there last year in the team's first-ever appearance in the national tournament after also winning at home in an Opening Round match. Last fall, the Mariners defeated Sun Conference champion and perennial power Embry-Riddle by a 3-1 score to advance in the tournament.
Again this year, the Mariners had to get by the Sun Conference winner to move on and it took a gritty effort by Coastal Georgia to knock off Southeastern (18-10) which was playing in its first national tournament after winning the Florida-based conference as the No. 3 seed last week.
The Fire gave the Mariners their best shot early, taking the first set 25-18 before Coastal Georgia came to life and won the next three sets by 25-18, 25-21, 25-18 to claim the victory in front of another large crowd that packed into the Coffin for the "White Out" and helped steer the Mariners to the win.
"We had to grind it out," said Coastal Georgia head coach Jeff Huebner. "It wasn't pretty. Last year, we played lights out in this match, probably the best volleyball we played. But today, we struggled. Southeastern played awesome and had us frustrated early. But like we have all year, our kids responded to adversity."
Last Saturday in the championship match of the Southern States Athletic Conference, the Mariners also dropped the first set before overpowering the Rams en route to a second straight league title.
Against the Fire, the Mariners weren't as dominant but they got stronger with each set as their attacking percentages improved from one set to the next in the final three games. After hitting just .250 in the first set with 14 kills and four errors in 40 attacks, the Mariners hit .310 (12-3-29) in set two, .406 (16-3-32) in the third and .565 (15-2-23) in the fourth frame.
Meantime, Southeastern terminated 17 of 38 attacks in the first set with just three errors to hit .368 but it would hit less than .300 in each of the final three sets as the Mariners changed their defensive sets to cool off the Fire.
"We definitely had to slow down their right side," Huebner said, referring to Kelsey Morton. "She had nine kills in the first set and finished with 13. We had to slow the ball down, so we changed how we blocked and also moved our middle back to a position she hadn't been in all year."
Offensively, the Mariners proceeded to attack from the inside out with middle blockers Krya White and Allie Shannon leading the Coastal Georgia offense with 21 and 17 kills, respectively.
White finished the match hitting a whopping .588 with just one error in 34 swings while Shannon hit .542 with also just one error in 24 attacks.
Their efficiency in the middle forced Southeastern to concentrate heavily on defending them, thus outside hitters Emma Anderson, Regan Coughlin and Kara Neisen produced points in the later sets for the Mariners. Coughlin, the SSAC Freshman of the Year, finished with eight kills, all-conference performer Anderson added seven and fellow all-conference selection Neisen finished with four.
"We know that it is really important for us to get kills to open things up for our outsides," Shannon said, alluding to White and herself. "Our serve receive was great tonight, and Cayley (Meiners) did a great job as always of getting the ball to us, our transition was really fast, and we did a good job of mixing up our shots."
Meiners proved again why she has won back-to-back Setter of the Year awards in the Southern States as she dished out 53 assists while the Mariners hit .363 as team for the match with 57 kills and 12 errors in 124 attempts.
The 53 assists gave Meiners her second-highest total of the season. She had 56 in a five-set win over St. Catharine (Ky.) back in August.
"Cayley does a great job of running the offense," White said. "She puts up a great set almost every time."
Defensively, the Mariners recorded 56 digs with Alyssa Keeve leading the effort with 15. Coughlin followed with 12 and Anderson added 10.
The Mariners also had seven total blocks with White leading the blocking performance with five assisted blocks.
The Fire ended up hitting just .260 for the match after their red-hot opening set. They finished with 51 kills and 18 errors in 127 attacks. Lydia Rooth led the team with 19 kills while Morton finished with 13.
Southeastern rocked the Mariners in that first set, going up by as much as 16-8 before winning by the final seven-point margin.
The Mariners credited the Fire for playing well, but quickly brushed off what they admitted was poor play on their part to regain form over the final three sets.
"We had some communication issues and knew we made some uncharacteristic mistakes that we don't usually make. We knew it wasn't a big issue," Meiners said of the team's slow start. "We just had to adjust and come back and play better."
And, the Mariners did. And while they came to life so did the crowd which the Coastal Georgia players said helped them keep the momentum against the gutsy Fire team.
"We definitely fed off their energy," Shannon said.
"When we were winning, it was amazing seeing everyone in the crowd standing up and getting into it. It was really fun," Meiners added.
Now, the Mariners hope to continue their fun in Sioux City when the action begins on Dec. 1. The final 24 teams in the championship will be divided into six different pools with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the 12-team single-elimination bracket.
The Mariners were 0-3 in pool play last year.
"Our goal is to get in that top 12 and just go for it," Meiners said.
