STAUNTON, VA - Averett University improved their record to 10-0 in USA South volleyball this evening with a 3-1 (25-19, 25-12, 23-25, 25-15) win over Mary Baldwin.

The Cougars jumped out to a 8-3 lead in the first set and held on to win 25-19.  Up 8-5 in the second set, Hannah Shields tallied an impressive 7 aces in a 10-0 run for Averett.   Mary Baldwin came back in the third set and built a 16-10 lead.  Averett stormed back to tie the set at 19 but the home team remained poised and took the win.  The final set was again close at 13-12, but errors from the Fighting Squirrels gave Averett the advantage they needed to take the 25-15 win.

Hannah Shields led Averett with an impressive 20 kills while Emily Stanley led the defense with 18 digs. 

Mary Baldwin was led by Katelyn Rice with 13 kills.  Rice also led the defense with 16 digs.  Farrah Fullerton followed with 7 kills.  Reilly Kelly tallied 25 assists while Brittany Sharon and Xenna Belfield added 12 and 10 digs respectively.

After the match, head coach Paul Yee said, "We played a tough match tonight against a good Averett team. I thought we did a lot of nice things that we have been working on in practice and maintained our composure well in a tight third set that could have gone either way. Averett has some strong weapons that we had to slow down and we did that some of the time, but we just need to keep working on being more consistent with what we do."

Mary Baldwin University, 4-17 (1-10 USAS), travel to N.C. Wesleyan College and Lynchburg over the weekend.