Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD --- The Howard University volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-18) victory over North Carolina A&T in the opening game of the 2013 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Tournament Friday afternoon at the Physical Education
Complex on the campus of Coppin State University.

With the victory, the North 3-seed Howard (21-10) advances to the semifinals in its first tournament appearance since 2011 to take on the winner of Hampton and South Carolina State on Saturday, November 16 at 12 noon. South 2-seed NC A&T finishes their season with a 7-25 overall record.

"It's a good thing that we won. This was the first win the program has had in the tournament in a long time at Howard, so getting over that hurdle is a positive," said Howard second-year head coach Shaun Kupferberg after the match.

"The biggest thing was that we were able to stay focused and defeat a good team. We came out well and were able to execute what we were trying to do, which is the name of the game right now."

Newly minted MEAC Rookie of the Year Katherine Broussard notched a double-double with a game-high 14 kills and 12 digs and hit .379 (14-3-29) in the match. Junior Meagan Lagerlef also put away double digit kills with 11. MEAC First Team juniors Stephanie Shultis and Assata Conway also had stellar games; Shultis had seven kills and 28 of the team's 38 assists, while Conway added six kills, six digs and 2.5 blocks (1 solo, 3 assists). MEAC Second Team junior Allyson Lods logged a team-high 15 digs.

In Set 1, Howard and NC A&T opened up with several ties and lead changes before the Aggies took a 10-5 lead thanks to a 5-0 run. The Lady Bison would respond with an 8-2 run of their own to take a 13-12 lead and force A&T into a timeout. The back-and-forth positioning would continue in the middle of the set until both teams were tied again at 18-18. Howard would outscore A&T 7-4 the rest of the way to take the first set, 25-22.

HU would dominate the second set in wire-to-wire fashion, opening up with seven straight points and maintaining that margin through most the set en route to a 25-18 victory.

Set 3 would play out similarly to the second. NC A&T would open by taking the first two points in the set, but Howard would score three straight of their own and never trail again, winning the set, 25-18.

One of the most impressive stats of the match was Howard's 8-0 advantage in blocks, which accounted for nearly half of the Aggies' 18 attack errors.