The High Point University volleyball team started their Big South Conference weekend road trip off with an impressive 3-2 victory over Charleston Southern on Friday night.

The Panthers (3-12, 1-1 Big South) picked up their second straight win of the week outlasting the Lady Buccaneers (5-10, 0-2 Big South) in a five game battle. HPU took the early lead winning the first two games, 30-25 and 30-27, only to see CSU rally with a pair of wins themselves (23-30, 29-31) to force a fifth and deciding game where High Point prevailed with a 15-8 victory.

"Proud of our determination and aggressiveness tonight," said HPU head coach Chad Esposito, who picked up the 199th victory of his career. "We worked all week on sustaining our intensity level for an entire match and I felt like we did that tonight. Our defensive effort was tremendous. I thought the key to the victory was our solid passing in serve receive and our ability to keep them out of sync with strong serving. It is a great win for us, especially when you go on the road in conference play and get a victory. We have a quick turnaround, but hopefully we can keep our winning momentum going tomorrow afternoon."

Junior Jamie Kaufman paced a hard-working HPU offense finishing with 20 kills on 73 attempts. Freshman Audie Gonzalez (16) and senior Sabrina Wahid (11) also tallied double-digit kills on the night. Sophomore setter Kristina Taylor dished out 47 assists in the match to go along with 11 digs.

Defensively, High Point recorded a season-best 114 digs as six Panthers posted double-digit digs in the contest. Gonzalez led the squad with a career-high 29 earning her the fifth double-double of the season for the rookie. Sophomore libero Lauren Hatch also topped the 20-dig mark against CSU finishing with 23. Freshman Tara Dyer recorded a personal best 18 digs with Kaufman, who posted her seventh double-double, adding 16 and junior Whitney Kaltenegger chipping in 10.

Jenni Shepherd was the Lady Bucs' top performer recording a "20-20" outing with 20 kills and 23 digs, both team highs in the match. Nichole Diller tallied nine blocks to help CSU to a 14-8 edge in blocks.

The first four games were hotly contested as both teams made runs and held leads in each of the frames. The Panthers took the first two games thanks in part to a more efficient offense as CSU hit just .000 in the opening frame and only .115 in game two.

HPU struggled on offense in game three recording a -.045 hitting percentage. In the fourth game, Charleston Southern held a late lead at 27-23 before High Point rallied with six straight points to earn a match point opportunity. Unfortunately, the Panthers would not score another point as the Lady Bucs tallied four consecutive points to take the game.

High Point led 6-3 at the start of the fifth game, but Charleston Southern scored the next four points to regain the lead 7-6. Following an HPU timeout, the Panthers took control of the match outscoring the Lady Bucs 9-1 en route to the win. The High Point defense also held the CSU offense to a match-low -.174 (two kills and six errors) hitting performance in the final frame.

The Panthers will get little time to rest as they return to action on Saturday at 4 p.m. with a match at Coastal Carolina.