Box Score | Bracket

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 16, 2018—Howard, the tournament host and Northern Division top seed, swept a tough North Carolina Central squad, 3-0 (27-25, 25-20, 28-26) on Friday at Burr Gymnasium in the quarterfinal round of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Volleyball Championships.
 
The Bison (18-10) advance to Saturday’s 8 p.m. semifinal against either Bethune-Cookman or Coppin State. Howard is seeking its fourth straight tournament title.
 
First Team All-MEAC selection Kira Porter went error-free in 18 swings, recording 15 kills to hit .833 for the match. Jurnee Tipton added 15 kills for the Bison, while MEAC Player of the Year Tamia Dockery had 41 of the team’s 46 assists.
 
“I’d like to thank North Carolina Central for scaring us tonight,” Howard head coach Shaun Kupferberg, the MEAC Coach of the Year, said. “They played really, really well. They were really aggressive, really scrappy.”
 
Fola Wilson led the way defensively with 18 digs.
 
Tipton gave Howard a 21-16 lead in the first set with a kill, but the Lady Eagles stormed back, using an 8-3 run to tie the set at 24-24 following a Bree Simmons service ace. Porter answered with a kill before an error again tied the set at 25-25.
 
Porter and Tipton each had kills to wrap up the set.
 
Arlanda Faulkner’s kill early in the second set capped a 5-1 run for North Carolina Central, and the Lady Eagles later had a 12-9 lead. But the Bison scored nine of the next 13 points to take an 18-16 lead after another Tipton kill.
 
Howard took the second set in a relatively drama-free fashion, but the third set wound up being a different story. A Porter block late in the set gave the Bison a 19-18 lead, but the score wound up tied eight times after that.
 
Whitney White tied the set at 26-26 with a kill, before Kailyn Williams forced match point with a kill of her own. An attack error on the next rally gave Howard that point and allowed the Bison to move on.
 
“We definitely need to clean some stuff up if we hope to be here through Sunday,” Kupferberg said.
 
Faulkner led N.C. Central (6-19) with 10 kills.