BATON ROUGE, La. | Grambling picked up its second straight SWAC win, downing rival Southern University 3-0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-22) Sunday afternoon at the Horace W. Moody Intramural Sports Complex. The victory improves the Tigers to 5-8 overall and a perfect 2-0 in conference play, while the Jaguars slip to 4-10 overall and 1-1 in SWAC action.
Grambling controlled the match from the opening whistle, cruising through the first set 25-15 before holding off a scrappier Southern squad in sets two and three. The Tigers hit .252 as a team for the match, well ahead of Southern's .024 clip, and turned in a balanced attack with three different hitters reaching the seven-kill mark.
Angelique Pena was nearly unstoppable at the net, going 8-for-12 with no errors for a blistering .667 hitting percentage to lead all Grambling attackers, adding three block assists as well.
Kenya Lucas and
Lyric Jordan each chipped in seven kills, with Lucas hitting .375 and tallying a team-high four block assists between blocking touches.
Rihianna Brown added six kills and five block assists, and
Reece Cook orchestrated the offense with 11 assists. Setter
Alayna Howard ran the show for a large share of the match with 21 assists, while
Asialin Powell anchored the back row with 15 digs. Lucas, Pena and Brown each finished with a team-best 9.5 points.
Southern fought hardest in the middle set, cutting the deficit to 25-19 and forcing six ties and five lead changes in that frame alone. Sereniti Johnson paced the Jaguars with 11 kills and 11 digs for a match-high 12.5 points, while Penina Vito dished out 22 assists. Reagan Robinson and Braelynn Reese each added five kills, and Najah Harris was busy in the back row with 21 digs. Southern's night was hampered by 29 attacking errors and only a .024 hitting percentage as a team.
Overall, the match featured 22 tie scores and 10 lead changes across three sets, with the second frame producing the most back-and-forth action before Grambling pulled away late in each set to close out the sweep.
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