Photo courtesy of Tresa Thornton

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - No. 3 Trinity University Volleyball collected its second victory over a nationally-ranked top-five opponent this season Saturday afternoon as the Tigers (13-1, 3-0 SCAC) concluded the first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference weekend with a straight-sets victory over No. 4 Colorado College (13-2, 2-1 SCAC). Trinity's first national top-five victory came on its 3-0 victory over then-No. 2 Emory University.

Senior outside hitter Avery Tuggle (Cedar Creek, Texas / Cedar Creek) put an exclamation point on the first weekend of conference play with a powerful .348 hitting clip which was good for 10 kills on just 23 swings, added a trio of blocks and led the back row with 17 digs for her fourth double-double this season. Tuggle opened the match tied for the lead in kills, then shifted her perspective defensively to pull in nine of her 17 digs in the final frame.

Fellow senior outside hitter Annie Rose Leggett (Austin, Texas / Westwood) led the attack individually with 15 kills, evenly divided between Saturday's three sets, and came within six-tenths of a percentage point of a .400 attack rate. The reigning SCAC Offensive Player of the Week collected her first ten kills on a .435 attack rate through the first two sets.

Setters senior Alexis Acevedo (San Antonio, Texas / Incarnate Word) and junior Marisa Amarino (Calabasas, Calif. / Notre Dame) put up 17 and 16 assists, respectively, which led to an overwhelming .355 team attack percentage, a significant margin ahead of Colorado College's .114 hitting rate. Acevedo also joined Tuggle in the double-double column with 10 digs.

The Tigers also notably out-performed their host on the block to the tune of a 9-3 advantage, led by middle blockers senior Emma Funk (Pass Christian, Miss. / Our Lady) and junior Brette Thornton (Rockwall, Texas / Rockwall).

Trinity's breakaway second-set score of 25-10 seized complete control of the El Pomar Sports Center as the Tigers 12 error-free kills (.522 att. percentage) while they also put Colorado College below zero in the hitting category via five blocks.

The Tigers played just their second true road match of the 2021 campaign on Saturday, the other being another 3-0 victory at California Lutheran University on September 10.

No. 3 Trinity Volleyball heads to week two of SCAC play in Shreveport, La. with matchups against the host Centenary College, Austin College and University of Dallas. The Tigers then make the 2,000-mile voyage to Boston, Mass. the following weekend for a four-match affair.

Numbers to Note

Four Tigers hit at or over .348 for the match, all with at least 13 attack attempts: Tuggle, Leggett, Funk and senior rightside hitter Sarah Williammee (Denver, Colo. / East) who notched seven kills and a pair of blocks.

For the week, Tuggle recorded 46 kills (3.54/set) on a staggering .393 attack rate over 89 swings in Trinity's four victories. Funk and Thornton each finished the week with a 1.30-plus mark in blocks per set with 17 and 13 total, respectively. Tuggle also notched a 4.23 digs per set average this week, good for a team-best 55 digs in total.

As a unit this week, the Tigers averaged 15.2 kills per set on a .362 attack rate compared to an opponent average of 9.5 kills/set and .098 hitting. The Trinity defense more-than doubled its adversaries this week in total blocks (35-17) and dominated in digs (211-151) over 13 sets.

Tuggle hopped two spots in Trinity's all-time career kills list with this weekend's effort, now with 1,273 kills for her tenure, ninth-best in program history.

Leggett moved up to 12th all-time at Trinity in digs as she collected 24 over the weekend to reach 1,430 digs for her career. She also added a pair of service aces to claim sole ownership of the sixth spot on the all-time chart there, just six away from the top-five in Tigers history.

Head Coach Julie Jenkins is well-within striking distance of her 1,000th career victory after Saturday's statement victory in conference play. The 37-year leader of Trinity Volleyball sits 998 wins in total.

Coach Speak

"Great win today for our Tigers," Coach Jenkins began. "Our intensity on the court and on our bench never let up from start to finish."

"So many things stood out in this match," Coach Jenkins continued: "our defense held Colorado College to a season-low .114 hitting percentage, our blocking game was spot-on with 9 blocks in 3 sets and our defense was even more impressive recording a season-high 20 digs per set average. Offensively our setters Lexie and Marisa did the best job of getting our hitters in so many one-on-ones. Four of our hitters hit .348 or higher. Definitely made for an exciting match to watch!"

Up Next

The third-ranked Tigers continue SCAC action next weekend with a visit to Centenary College, where Trinity will play Austin College Friday at 11 a.m. CT followed by the host Ladies at 5 p.m., then conclude with University of Dallas Saturday at Noon CT.