CHATTANOOGA --- Chattanooga volleyball looked dominant on Thursday night in Maclellan Gymnasium, as the Mocs ran the Spartans out of the gym with a 3-0 sweep in front of the team's highest attendance of the season so far.
The Mocs (17-9, 5-6 SoCon) looked unstoppable from the moment they took the floor against the Spartans (1-21, 0-11 SoCon), and a UTC squad outhit UNCG 34.1 percent to 12.5 percent ultimately came away with the team's ninth sweep of 2023 in front of over 300 Chattanooga fans in the Mac.
"I was happy with the level of intensity we came out with to start the match and with how we finished," head coach Julie Torbett said. "We got a lot of points from their errors, but we found a way to earn some of our own too. I was really happy with our serving and blocking overall."
"It was nice to have the band there as well as the other student-athletes. It was just a fun night!"
The Mocs came out swinging from the jump in set one, taking an early 12-4 lead that would drain the Spartans of both of their timeouts early-on in the set. UTC didn't take its foot off of the gas, finishing set one with a 25-17 win that would put the Mocs up early on UNCG.
UNC Greensboro put together their best effort of the night in the second frame, as the Mocs and Spartans swapped the lead multiple times throughout the entirety of the set. With the scoreboard reading 21-21, errors would prove fatal for the Spartans as the Mocs put themselves up 24-23. With one last kill by Chard'e Vanzandt, who would finish the night with 12 kills, the Mocs took the second set to jump ahead two sets to none.
Reeling from a tight loss in set two, the Spartans couldn't handle a Mocs team that was swinging for the fences in the third set as UTC opened the frame with a 7-0 scoring run to set the tone. Not letting up after gaining the lead, bulldozed their competition with the largest Chattanooga lead at one point being 15-4. After a pair of UTC kills iced the set 25-13, the match was sealed with the Mocs claiming a 3-0 sweep over UNCG to open their weekend in Maclellan.
With the win, the Mocs have now tallied a total of nine sweeps in 2023, the most for UTC under Coach Torbett during her tenure with the team as well as the most by any Chattanooga squad since 2016.
Morgan Romano led the way in the kills department for Chattanooga, notching 13 while also setting a new season-high hit percentage on the night by hitting 57.1 percent. Vanzandt would also finish above 50 percent hitting on the night, as her 12-for-17 clip put her at 52.9 percent.
Setter Elaine Redman finished with exactly 30 assists for the Mocs, the 17th time this year that she's had 30+ in a match, while defending SoCon Defensive Player of the Week Paige Gallentine continued her blazing hot stretch by logging 17 digs against the Spartans. Kate Neill paced the Mocs in blocks with four.
UP NEXT
The Mocs will now close out their two-match homestand tomorrow night in Maclellan Gym by hosting in-state rival ETSU (3-18, 3-7 SoCon) for the team's annual Dig Pink Breast Cancer Awareness match. Friday night's clash between UTC and the Buccaneers is set for 6 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN+. Chattanooga will then have to hit the road for two road matchups at Western Carolina and Furman before returning home for their final two matches of the regular season October 9-10 against Mercer and Samford.
50 SEASONS OF CHATTANOOGA VOLLEYBALL
The 2023 season for the Chattanooga Mocs volleyball team marks a major landmark for the program and the university, as UTC volleyball officially celebrates its 50th season of competition as a university sponsored athletic program. Following the adoption of the Title IX legislation back in 1972, UTC added women's basketball, tennis, and volleyball programs to its roster of athletic teams, bringing on five decades of history for each of the teams.
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