ROME, Ga. – The 12th-ranked Trinity University volleyball team swept through the opening day at the Southern Athletic Association Mega-Pod Tournament with 3-0 wins over both Oglethorpe University (GA) and the University of the South (TN).

The Tigers (11-3, 5-0) won 25-11, 25-13, 25-19 against Oglethorpe to start the day, then finished with a 27-25, 25-16, 25-17 win over Sewanee in its Saturday finale. It was a balanced attack offensively and defensively by Trinity as 14 different players saw action in at least one of the matches.

Against Oglethorpe, Marissa Drange (Boerne, Texas / Champion) was the only Tiger to reach double figures in kills, piling up 11 to go with a .625 hitting percentage. Connelley McWilliams (Austin, Texas / St. Michael's) finished with eight kills and a team-best .727 hitting percentage, while also leading Trinity with five blocks. Jozie Dhayer (Houston, Texas / Summer Creek) finished with a team-leading 12 assists, followed closely by Anna Verhoff (Milton, Ga. / Milton) and her 10 assists in the match. Verhoff also led the team with four service aces. Jenna Rodriguez (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) finished with a team-high nine digs, with Dhayer adding eight digs of her own. Reagan Whatley (The Woodlands, Texas / The Woodlands) wrapped up the match with eight kills and seven digs.

The Sewanee match had Rodriguez leading the way with 22 digs and two aces, while Kendall DeRivel (Westlake Village, Calif. / Viewpoint) edged out Dhayer for the team lead with 15 assists. Dhayer added 13 assists of her own and both Tigers contributed six digs in the match. Whatley led the way with 11 kills in the second match, topping out with a hitting percentage over .300 in three sets. Lauren McCarthy (Corrales, N.M. / Horizon) and Taylor Starr (Southlake, Texas / Carroll) finished with four blocks each to lead the team.

The Rundown
After trading points early in the first set, Oglethorpe took its first lead of the match at 4-3. Unfortunately for the Stormy Petrels, that ignited a 9-0 run that swung the momentum in Trinity's favor, and the Tigers never looked back. Whatley had two aces and a kill during the streak that turned the tide for good, while McWilliams and Starr combined for back-to-back blocks, and then McWilliams slammed a kill to finish off the streak to put Trinity in command with a 12-4 lead. The lead was still eight several points later (18-10) when the Tigers scored seven of the final eight points to take the 25-11 victory.

The start of the second set was like the first as Oglethorpe matched Trinity in the early going and led 3-1 when the Tigers once again used a lengthy run to take control. Verhoff recorded three aces in the first four points to ignite the flurry of scoring by the Tigers, then McWilliams and Whatley had back-to-back kills to take it to an 8-3 lead. Oglethorpe battled back briefly, but Trinity was relentless by scoring seven of nine points during one stretch that pushed it to a 17-10 margin. Courtney Pope (New Braunfels, Texas / Canyon) to help fuel the run, while McWilliams added a block and a kill. Oglethorpe tried to keep up with Trinity after that, but the Tigers rattled off five unanswered points at the end to take a 25-13 win, fueled by two aces from DeRivel.

The Petrels came out strong by scoring five of the first six points in the third set, making their play to avoid the sweep. Trinity withstood the initial barrage of scoring and kept the game within reach after that and then deployed another long scoring streak to take its first lead. Trailing 14-11, the Tigers scored six straight points to pull ahead 17-14 behind two kills from McWilliams, and one each from McCarthy and Drange. The streak continued and peaked at 13 of 15 points down the stretch, resulting in match point at 24-16. Drange dropped three straight kills during a 5-0 run late in the match, while Aeris Vera (San Antonio, Texas / Pieper) clinched the win with a kill to make it a 25-19 final score.

Sewanee controlled the early part of the first set by pushing the margin as high as 9-3 before Trinity got things going in the right direction. The Tigers scored five of six points on kills from four different players to cut the lead to 10-8. Sewanee kept the lead until late in the match when Trinity produced a 6-1 scoring run to take a 21-19 lead. Starr had a block and a kill during that stretch, while Rodriguez had an assist and a kill on the final two plays to finish the run. A determined Sewanee side reclaimed the lead at 23-22 with a service ace, but Drange tied things up with a kill right after that. Sewanee then had three attacking errors at the end of the set and Trinity squeezed out the 27-25 victory.

The teams continued a back-and-forth battle in the second set until Trinity broke a 12-12 tie with five unanswered points. Starr had a block and an ace during the stretch that made it a 17-12 Trinity lead. The lead was never less than four points after that and Trinity scored five in a row to close out the set with a 25-16 win. DeRivel started with a setter dump for a kill, then assisted on a Whatley kill that followed another attacking error from Sewanee. After a Rodriguez ace set up set point, Pope and Starr combined for the block that gave Trinity a 2-0 lead.

The third set started with four straight Trinity points, including a kill from Whatley and an ace from Rodriguez to open the scoring. Sewanee rallied to tie things up and even take a brief lead, but Trinity broke a 9-9 tie with six straight points to take control of the match. McCarthy and Whatley had two kills each during that run, with McCarthy and Pope adding a block for the punctuation mark. Sewanee tried to avoid the sweep and drew within three points, but Trinity scored five of the last six points to close out the win. McCarthy had a solo block and a kill, while DeRivel scored an ace and an assist on the final two plays of the 25-17 win.

Up Next
The Tigers finish off the weekend of SAA action by taking on Millsaps College (MS) On Sunday at 10:30 a.m.