Thalia Cordero-Moreno’s 14 kills led an offensive attack that hit at an astounding .241 clip as the Texas Southern University volleyball team downed Southern University 3-1 (25-19, 25-15, 28-26, 25-7).
TSU honored seniors Janiya Chapman, Nia Ford, Danielle Lilley, Thalia Cordero-Moreno, Indyah Rideaux, Caitlyn Roland and Kaitlyn Scroggins prior to the contest as part of Senior Day festivities with Monday night being the final home regular-season contest at the H&PE Arena.
TSU (9-18, 9-7 SWAC) outperformed Southern in five of the six major team statistical categories including total points (68-47), kills (54-38), service aces (11-4), assists (42-31) and digs (49-45).
With the Tigers leading 6-4, TSU used a 7-0 run to take a commanding 13-4 lead thanks to a pair of kills from Cordero-Moreno as well as a service ace and a kill from Alaiyah Fields.
Southern responded with a run of its own, going from being down 15-6 to making it just a deficit of 16-14. From then on, neither team could put together more than three consecutive points, but it was all that TSU needed to get the set victory at 25-19.
Set two was nothing but Tigers who had multiple runs of 3-4 points together while allowing the Jaguars little to no breathing room for a 25-15 set win.
Facing their season coming to an end, the Jaguars rallied from a 19-14 deficit in the third set to tie the score at 19-19. Southern took a 22-21 lead as both teams were about to embark on a trading of points the rest of the set until Southern took the set in extras at 28-26.
Texas Southern only delayed the inevitable for the opposition as the Tigers won the season series after the fourth set 25-17 dropping the Jaguars to 3-25 overall and 3-13 in the SWAC.
Chenise Cook had a stellar outing going 9-0-12 for a whopping .750 hitting percentage. Kaitlyn Scroggins led the Tigers with 11 digs.
The two-headed monster of Dallas Balanay-Flores and Fields ran the offense to perfection dishing out 24 and 17 assists, respectively, from their setter positions.
UP NEXT
Texas Southern will be the host of the 2022 SWAC Volleyball Championships and has earned the fifth seed in the eight team, single-elimination tournament. TSU will matchup against fourth-seeded Jackson State (12-16, 11-5 SWAC). The match start times have not been released as of the publication of this recap so please check Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media. The dates, however, have been set with the quarterfinals on Friday, semifinals on Saturday and championship match on Sunday.