HIGH POINT, N.C. – The Millis Center, on the beautiful campus of High Point University was full of fans for the home opening weekend of the High Point Invitational. An evening spent watching volleyball, the Panther fans left happy with giveaways, food and a 3-0 sweep over the visiting East Tennessee State University.
"It felt good to come home," head coach
Ryan Meek stated. "It felt good to play in front of our fans in Millis. A lot of the preseason tournaments are at neutral sites and you don't get a lot of fan atmosphere and I thought playing at home is a little bit more juiced, and we saw that in the first set."
After many four and five set battles to start the season, the Panthers could not have had a better outcome in their first home game of the season. Along with the victory,
Christine Graf reached a career milestone when she crushed her fifth kill of the night in the second set, scoring her 1000
th career kill since starting her collegiate volleyball journey in 2019.
"It feels awesome," Graf stated. "Looking back on it, when I played club and high school volleyball, I never really thought I would do anything like this, but playing in college I have gained a lot of confidence and hitting this milestone means a lot to me. I have been through a lot to get to where I am today, with the help of my teammates and coaches. I am glad I was able to reach it here at High Point and that's really special to me."
Site: Millis Center
Score: High Point 3, ETSU 0
Records: High Point (5-3), ETSU (0-7)
The Panthers opened the evening with a statement in the first set. With a diverse attack from the High Point front line, the Panthers extended on an 11 point lead giving the Bucs no chance to sinch the gap. High Points bench experienced some playing time as
Ella Grasson,
Evy Eckensberger and
Kennedy Louisell all came in and helped secure the first win of the night.
In the second set, ETSU had a different approach and kept the game close through the first half of the set. Back-to-back kills from Graf set the tone and fired up the Panthers for a 6-3 run late in the set.
A key component of the second and third sets was High Point's block. The Panthers put up 11 blocks in just those two sets alone, to average four blocks per set in the full match.
Eve Wilson contributed on six of the 11 blocks during that stretch.
"We have really been on our girls about waiting until they set it and being fast and aggressive after it," coach Meek commented. "We have kind of been hit and miss on it and I think we blocked 11 balls between sets two and three and that's crazy. The best teams in the country average three blocks a set and we were averaging 5.5 for two sets. I thought that was a cool thing to see, our block igniting."
After taking the second set, the third set was a breeze for the Panthers. A kill from
Jayde Shelton to make it 14-9 added to a 7-3 run. HPU stole the last four points with four attack errors from ETSU and a Graf kill, earning the Panthers 25th point and the first 3-0 sweep of the season.
"I thought we played a pretty complete game," coach Meek added. "We hit .350 and held ETSU to .025 and we blocked 12 balls. Looking at the stat sheet there's not much I can pick apart. In the second set we kind of came and went but in the first and third set, there was a really good effort by us."
Graf led the team with 10 kills with a .500 hit percentage, while Wilson had seven and
Dylan Maberry added five.
UP NEXT
The Panthers remain home for the final game of the High Point Invitational on Sunday, September 10 at 2:00 p.m. versus Davidson College.
#GoHPU
