![\"Seton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Seton-Hall.png\")
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Next Match:<\/p>\n
vs. Seton Hall <\/p>\n
9\/6\/2026 | 1:00 PM <\/p>\n
\n Sep. 06 (Sun) \/ 1:00 PM
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\n vs.\u00a0Seton Hall
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History <\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Asheville, N.C. \u2013\u00a0Junior transfer Sophia Marini<\/a> posted a career-high 14 kills as Western Carolina volleyball earned its second victory of the weekend, downing Jacksonville State on Saturday night in four sets, 3-1, at the Blue Ridge Volleyball Classic at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center \u2013 Asheville. WCU earned the win with scores of 25-20, 22-25, 25-21, 25-15.\u00a0<\/p>\n Western Carolina improves to 2-3 on the season with a matchup against Seton Hall on Sunday afternoon. The Pirates have split their first two matches in Asheville. Jacksonville State drops to 1-5 after back-to-back losses to Bellarmine and WCU on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Marini paced a balanced Catamount offense, adding a pair of blocks to her career offensive output. Senior\u00a0Zoe Zudans<\/a>\u00a0tallied 11 kills with an impressive .381 hitting percentage and a pair of digs. Freshman Ashlyn Cobb<\/a> earned her third double-double of the season and second in as many matches with 10 kills and 10 digs, adding a pair of blocks.<\/p>\n Sophomore Tatum Sharp<\/a> rounded out a quartet of players in double figures with 10 kills, and finished one shy of her career-high with six blocks. Freshman Aiyana Harris<\/a> picked up five kills and four blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Senior\u00a0Katie Boney<\/a>\u00a0led the Catamounts with 46 assists as she continued her strong work on the block with five rejections, three service aces, three digs and two kills.\u00a0WCU also posted a season-high with 12 service aces led by three apiece from Boney, sophomore Elise Gurley<\/a>, and senior Eda Yalcinkaya.\u00a0<\/p>\n Defensively, Gurley put together a strong night with 18 digs, three aces and four assists. Sharp led WCU on the block with six stops, followed by Boney with five and Harris with four.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jacksonville State was led by Azavia Thomas and Claire Evans with 14 kills apiece as Thomas also tallied a team-high tying four blocks. Sofia Varela led the Gamecocks with 24 helpers and six digs. Addison Stone added 16 assists for JSU. Evans and Reese Tiesing each recorded a team-best nine digs. D’Yanna Spicer and Thomas each led the way with four blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The opening set of Saturday’s action featured nine ties before a quick 4-1 burst from WCU made it 17-14 for the Catamounts. After three points by Jacksonville State, the Purple & Gold closed the set on an 8-3 run to earn the 25-20 win for the 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n Jacksonville State opened the second set with a 9-3 lead that allowed the Gamecocks to seize early control. The Catamounts battled back with a 10-5 spurt of their own to make it a one-point deficit,14-13. The Gamecocks had a 5-2 burst to stretch the lead to 19-15 before three unanswered from the Catamounts to make it a one-point margin. The score remained tight late before the Gamecocks edged WCU 25-22 to even the set at a match apiece.<\/p>\n The Gamecocks opened the third set with an 8-4 run before WCU responded, matching with an 8-3 run of its own to take a 12-11 lead. JSU evened the set at 15 before Western Carolina closed efficiently with a 6-2 run, and after a quick 3-0 spurt, closed with four of the final five points to earn a 25-21 set three victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jacksonville State took an early 9-4 lead in the fourth set before seven in a row allowed WCU to grab an 11-9 lead. Jacksonville State cut it to two, 13-11, before the Catamounts finished off the Gamecocks with a 12-4 spurt that allowed Western Carolina to finish off the 25-15 four-set victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n Western Carolina closes out the second annual Blue Ridge Volleyball Classic on Sunday against Seton Hall at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville at 1 p.m. Live Stats for the match will be provided via a link at\u00a0CatamountSports.com<\/a>. Tickets for the weekend’s events in Asheville are on sale online through BlueRidgeVolleyballClassic.com or\u00a0Ticketmaster.com<\/a>\u00a0and at the iHeart Media Asheville Box Office located at the venue.<\/p>\n Keep track of everything related to Catamount volleyball and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com\/catamountsports), Instagram (@wcu_catamounts, @catamountvb), and Twitter (@catamounts, @catamountvb).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next Match: vs. Seton Hall 9\/6\/2026 | 1:00 PM
Sep. 06 (Sun) \/ 1:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-391889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}