Babson Park, Fla. – The College of Coastal Georgia women's volleyball team came up short here Wednesday night as it fell 3-2 to Webber International at the Sabbagh Athletic Center.
The Sun Conference match was the first for the Mariners as a league member.
The contest was also the first for the Mariners since playing in the Southeastern Challenge on Sept. 2. Coastal Georgia had four matches postponed before and after Hurricane Irma which led to the lengthy layoff between matches.
The tough loss dropped the Mariners to 1-7 for the season. They opened the season playing against several ranked opponents in two tournaments including defending national champion and current top-ranked Hastings (Neb.) in the Bill Marshall tournament held in Nebraska.
Coastal Georgia was the preseason pick by the conference coaches to win the Sun title this year.
With the win, Webber improved to 7-3 and 2-0 in early league play. The Warriors, who won the Sun regular-season and conference tournament titles last season, also won a five-set contest over Southeastern on Saturday to open their league slate.
On Wednesday, the Mariners saw the Warriors take the first two sets by scores of 28-26 and 25-19 but they extended the match to five sets by taking the third game 25-22 and also the fourth game 25-19.
The Warriors, though, would regroup in time to pull out a 15-12 victory in the decisive fifth set to claim the match win.
The stats for both teams were fairly comparable as might be expected in the tightly-contested match.
Webber edged out the Mariners in total kills, 63-59, but had 25 attack errors to 19 by the Mariners. The Warriors hit .230 as a team while Coastal Georgia finished hitting .245.
The Mariners had 16 service errors to 13 by the Warriors but did have nine aces to just three by the home team.
Individually, Ehize Omoghibo, the leading attacker for Coastal Georgia going into the contest, sparkled again with 23 kills while hitting .314 for the match. She also finished with 10 digs and three blocks.
Kyra White also was solid for the Mariners with 13 kills and just one error while hitting .353 for the contest. She was credited with six total blocks.
Ashley Kot registered 43 assists for the Mariners while also digging out nine attacks.
Laney Green again led the Coastal Georgia defense with 27 digs.
For Webber, three attackers reached twin figures for kills including Virginia Salanoa-Sagapolu (21), Cameron Neely (16) and Brittany Taksas (14).
Carlee Baxter dished out 49 assists for the Warriors while also recording 14 digs.
Michelle Calderon led the Webber defensive effort with 21 digs.
Coastal Georgia is off until next Wednesday when the Mariners host Warner for their first home match.
