The Colorado College volleyball team used 12 service aces to make up for a sluggish attack and came from behind to post a 20-25, 25-23, 25-14, 25-20 victory over Colorado State University-Pueblo on Tuesday night at Reid Gymnasium.
The 13th-ranked Tigers improved to 31-3 overall and completed its home schedule with a perfect 20-0 record. CC also improved to 4-1 against Division II opponents from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. The ThunderWolves slipped to 7-18.
Sophomore opposite hitter Meredith Ballard had a match-high 17 kills and hit .560 to pace the CC attack. Sophomore setter Amy Schornack added seven kills and posted a .545 hitting percentage, while junior middle blocker Erika Pirotte had six kills on 21 attacks with just one error.
Playing in their final home match, senior outside hitter Kameron Moding had six kills and senior libero Holli Palmer recorded a season-high 13 digs.
CSU-Pueblo jumped out to an 8-1 lead in the first set, but the Tigers battled back to knot the score at 16-16. The ThunderWolves got a pair of kills from Megan Koop and used four CC errors to build a 23-20 lead, and then closed out the set with a pair of kills from Bernadette Pitre.
It looked as though CSUP was going to take a two set lead when they built a 20-15 lead late in the second frame, but a 6-1 run allowed CC to tie the score at 21-21. After Pitre gave the ThunderWolves a 23-22 lead, Ballard had three kills and the Tigers evened the match on a kill by Schornack.
Colorado College carried the momentum into the third set and used five kills from Ballard to take a 2-sets-to-1 lead.
Still struggling on offense, the Tigers took advantage of three aces, three blocks and seven other hitting errors to close out the match.
Pitre led CSU-Pueblo with 11 kills, while Koop added eight. Ashley Michel had a match-high 16 digs.
Colorado College returns to action on Friday when it plays either Millsaps College or host Oglethorpe University in the second round of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament in Atlanta.
