GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Cassie Born recorded 16 kills and 10 digs to lead the Tusculum volleyball team to a 3-0 South Atlantic Conference sweep over Catawba Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Arena during TC's homecoming weekend.
Tusculum (14-9, 9-4 SAC) won the match by scores of 25-18, 25-19, 25-18 to complete the season-sweep over the Catawba Indians (3-14, 1-12 SAC). The Pioneers also recorded their third straight win and improve to 8-2 at home this season.
TC finished the day with 44 kills and a .250 hitting percentage, while limiting the Indians to a .119 attack percentage.
The trio of Laryssa Welch, Mariah Lewis and Sabrina Schleuger added seven kills apiece in the win. Shannon Murphy added 37 assists, two service aces, eight digs and two blocks. Melissa Mazur added 14 digs with two aces.
In the opening set, the Pioneers hit .250 while Catawba was limited to a .000 hitting percentage. TC trailed 9-6, before going on a 13-3 run to move ahead 19-12. Catawba would trim the deficit to 21-17 but that would be as close as the Tribe would get as TC prevailed 25-18.
TC scored the first six points of the second set and led wire-to-wire in a 25-19 win. The Pioneers led by as many as nine at 20-11 before settling for the six-point win. Born accounted for nine of Tusculum's 17 kills in the frame while Schleuger and Mazur tallied five digs apiece.
It was more of the same in the third set as Tusculum jumped out to a 13-5 lead and led by as many as 17-8 before cruising to a 25-18 win to close out the match and the 3-0 sweep.
Tusculum will play its next six matches on the road beginning with Tuesday's SAC battle with Mars Hill beginning at 7 p.m. from Stanford Arena.
