Box Score | Bracket

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 16, 2018—North Carolina A&T State picked up its first postseason win since 2006 on Friday, opening the 2018 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Volleyball Championships with a 3-2 (25-23, 25-19, 17-25, 25-27, 15-7) win over Maryland Eastern Shore in Burr Gymnasium.
 
The Aggies (13-11) advance to Friday’s 5 p.m. semifinal against either Florida A&M or Morgan State.
 
Courteney Pitt, a First Team All-MEAC honoree, led N.C. A&T State with 14 kills, while Edie Brewer had 11 kills and just two errors in hit a team-best .450 (among players with at least 10 attempts). Brewer also had a team-high 27 assists and nine digs.
 
Andrea Laboy-Rivera led the Aggies with 18 digs.
 
“We made some really good plays and our game plan really came together,” Aggies head coach Hal Clifton said. “That’s a really good team Trevor [Callarman, Hawks head coach] has over there, and he’s got three amazing seniors.”
 
“It took us a little bit of time to figure out our serve-receive,” Callarman said. “The first two sets, we kept losing that battle. In the third and fourth sets, we did a much better job in that regard.”
 
The Aggies appeared to have the affair wrapped up in four sets, leading 21-17 in the fourth set following a block from Lily Walton and Fatimah Shabazz. But the Hawks responded with an 8-3 spurt, taking a 25-24 lead after Sola Okesanjo registered a kill.
 
Pitt tied the set with a kill, before Rachel Kayongo had a kill of her own and Mauri Carver and Ivana Blazevic blocked a Pitt attempt to take the set.
 
But the Aggies responded after the break, opening the fifth set on an 11-1 run. A kill from Brewer later not only clinched the set, but also gave North Carolina A&T State its first tournament victory since 2006, when the Aggies defeated Bethune-Cookman in four sets.
 
“I’m proud of our team,” Clifton said. “They didn’t panic.”
 
First Team All-MEAC honoree Lucia Babic led Maryland Eastern shore (10-16) with 29 kills. Kayongo had a double-double of 15 kills and 10 digs.