Koala Volleyball Drops Final Two Matches of the Season

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — The Columbia College volleyball team dropped their final AAC match of the season on the road Saturday, 26-24, 25-10, 25-15 to rival Spartanburg Methodist College. 

Junior outside hitter Maranda Bird led the visiting Koalas with 12 kills and 14 digs for a double double while recording a .226 hitting percentage and one assist.

Current AAC Setter of the Week, junior Debra Shephard led with 25 assists, four digs and two kills while defensive specialists, freshman Riley Koellner, senior Lottie Assen, and libero Katie Roberts combined for 20 digs with Assen adding an ace and Roberts an assist. Sophomore DS Vada Monaghan also added two aces and a dig.

Senior middle blocker Destiny Brown also played well in her final collegiate game posting six kills with two digs, an assist and a solo block while outside hitters Tamia Fripp and freshman Kameron Turner combined for 9 kills and four digs.

The opening set of the match was the most competitive of the match, featuring three ties before SMC pulled out a 26-24 win. Columbia totaled 14 kills in the set and hit .216. However, SMC poured it on from there hitting .400 and .345 over the next two sets combining for 23 kills and only two errors while CC had just 16 kills to pick up the match win.

SMC improved to 13-19 overall and 8-11 in the conference while Columbia finishes the season 5-23 overall and 5-14 in the AAC and tied for 11th place out of 14 schools.

CIU 3, COLUMBIA 0

On Friday evening, the Koalas traveled across town to face off with rival and first place CIU but fell in three sets 0-3, by scores of 16-25, 13-25, and 8-25. The Koalas totaled 11 kills in the first set to hit .121 but managed to hit only 11 more kills for the remainder of the match while making 27 attack errors.

Bird led the offense on the outside with 9 kills, 6 digs and a block while Brown had 7 kills in the middle with 3 blocks and a dig. Shephard had 19 assists, 2 digs, a block and a kill while Roberts had eight digs and an assist. Turner added 4 kills from the right side with a dig and a block as well.

CIU improved to 17-2 in the conference to earn the #1 seed in next week's conference tournament while Columbia's season comes to an end.