HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University volleyball team sent off its seniors on senior night with a sweet victory over the visiting Radford University Highlanders on Friday night. Cruising through a quick three sets, HPU closed out the Big South regular-season with the 3-0 sweep.
High Point finished the regular season with a 12-2 league record and were crowned the Big South Regular-Season champions for the third straight season.
"Just a wonderful way to send our seniors out," Head Coach
Ryan Meek stated. "A fantastic performance by them and our entire team. Winning a regular season conference title is never easy and we were able to secure a championship tonight. I love the way we're playing heading into the conference tournament, now we need to maintain for another week."
Site: Millis Center
Score: High Point 3, Radford 0
Records: High Point (16-9, 12-2), Radford (5-9, 9-18)
The Panthers had a strong first set which began with an ace by
Gia Padilla after a service error by the Highlanders. High Point would never trail in the first set, jumping out to a quick 12-5 lead.
The Highlanders would ultimately call a timeout after a long rally between the sides that was ended by
Ryley Boyne with a kill. Radford tried to reset coming out of the timeout, however, the Panthers remained persistent going up 21-11 forcing a second Radford timeout.
The Panthers took set one, 25-16. During set one, four different Panthers recorded aces, as
Gia Padilla led the way with three aces of her own to start off her senior night performance.
Addison Freeland registered four kills for HPU as well.
In set two Padilla would continue to put her service skills on display racking up another pair of aces early. Freeland showed some deception at the net barely tipping the ball over for a kill. This was followed by
Ryley Boyne who had a powerful cross court kill, adding to the total to tie the set at 8-8.
The Panthers and Highlanders would battle back and forth until HpU produced four consecutive points to go up 12-8. Coming out of the Radford timeout
Maya Bukovcan kept the momentum going with a powerful spike at the net.
High Point went on to stretch out the lead to 20-10 forcing another timeout by Radford. Padilla finished off a long rally with a kill to make it 21-12. Gray followed with a solo block at the net to go up 23-14. Jeffrey ended set two with an exclamation point spike to give HPU the 25-17 win, putting the Panthers up two sets to none.
In the third set, the panthers went up 9-4 after back-to-back kills from Boyne. High Point strung together three more points for the 5-0 run to make it 12-4. After leading 15-8 with a middle kill from Bukovcan,
Sydney McKay went on a serving terror recording three aces in a row to go up 18-8, putting the total ace count for the day at 12 for HPU.
Boyne gave High Point its final point of the night, allowing the Panthers to complete the 3-0 sweep with a 25-14 victory in set three on senior night.
Extra Stats:
- Padilla had a strong night, leading the team with eight kills, 12 digs and five service aces.
- McKay finished with four aces.
- As a team High Point hit .216 and held the Highlanders to a .047 hitting percentage.
UP Next:
High Point will host the Big South Championships at the Millis Center beginning on Friday, November 21 through Sunday, November 23. More information about the tournament will be announced soon.
#GoHPU
