Monday, September 07, 2009

LADY PANTHER VOLLEYBALL PLACES SECOND IN TSU TOURNAMENT

HOUSTON, TEXAS (September 7, 2009) The Prairie View A&M women’s volleyball team came into last weekend’s TSU Tournament hungry for their first win of the season. After coming off hard-fought games against several strong programs over the past two weeks, the Lady Panthers have set themselves up to succeed.

The ladies opened up the tournament on Friday afternoon against Mississippi Valley (1-0), who came off a win against Dillard University earlier in the day. Prairie View jumped out to an early lead in all sets of the match and used the momentum to defeat the Devilettes 3-1 (25-18, 25-23, 25-13).

Sapphire Reid led the Panthers with 13 kills and hit .297 for the match along with 37 attempts and only two errors. She also added five assists, two blocks and a service ace. Cheri Lindsay added 11 kills and hit .281 for the match on 32 attempts and with only two errors.

Erin Fondel contributed with a team-high of 28 assists, three kills on six attempts, no errors and seven digs. Jasmine Hale came off the bench and added 13 digs, four kills and one assisted block.

Coming into day two of the tournament, the Prairie View A&M volleyball team split a pair of matches Saturday, defeating Dillard 3-2 (25-22, 25-20, 21-25, 20-25, 15-12) but losing to host Texas Southern University, 3-1 (23-25, 21-25, 25-21, 22-25).

The Lady Panthers defeated Dillard in a hard-fought match that went back-and-forth. Prairie View started out strong as they claimed a two-set lead over Dillard. However, Dillard was able to crawl their way back into the match and ended up winning the next two sets to force a winner-take-all set five. Despite dropping consecutive sets, Prairie View regrouped and defeated Dillard in the fifth set by a margin of 15-12 to win the match.

Cheri Lindsay led the way offensively with 16 kills while Sharonda Marshall added 14 kills. Lindsay hit a team-best .455 in the match with only one hitting error. Freshman Breanna McNeil added 10 kills while Sapphire Reid had nine kills and Shawn Williams recorded eight kills.

The tournament finale paired longtime rivals Prairie View and TSU as both teams entered with undefeated 2-0 marks. Unfortunately, the Lady Panthers couldn’t bring home the title as they dropped a hard-fought match to TSU 3-1.

Prairie View dropped the first two sets to TSU, 23-25, 21-25, while pulling off a great win in set three, 25-21. Jasmine Hale was able to contribute two consecutive big scores in game three that moved the Lady Panthers to a 24-21 lead. The Lady Tigers wouldn’t get any closer than three points the rest of the set and Cheri Lindsay put away the final point of the set to give Prairie View the set win. However, that would be the highlight of the match as TSU rebounded to win the tourney as they won the next set 25-22.

Sharonda Marshall came to play in the match as the Houston native recorded a team-high 18 kills and four total blocks. Cheri Lindsay also recorded another great performance with 16 kills and two digs.

“As a team we could have played better but we still have areas we need to work on,” said head coach Alicia Pete. “Once we have a lead in a match we need to seal the deal instead of giving the opponent the opportunity to come back in the match.”

The Lady Panthers finished second overall in the tournament with a 2-1 record. Erin Fondel and Cheri Lindsay received All-Tournament accolades as Fondel racked up a team-high 45 assists throughout the tournament while Lindsay recorded a total of 33 kills.

“Communication was our strongest point which will be the key to success for the rest of the year,” noted Pete. “Our setter, Erin Fondel, stood out the most with her wise decision-making by setting up big scores in big situations.”

The Lady Panthers are now 2-5 overall. The team travels to Lake Charles, La. for the McNeese Tournament that begins on Friday, Sept. 11.

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