Nuggets, 14-0 in GCAC, win 8th straight championship

TOUGALOO, Mississippi — Xavier University of Louisiana put the finishing touches on an eighth consecutive Gulf Coast Athletic Conference volleyball regular-season championship with a 25-19, 25-13, 27-25 victory Sunday against Tougaloo.
     
The Gold Nuggets (24-6, 14-0) will be the No. 1 seed in the GCAC Tournament Friday and Saturday at SUNO's The Castle. XULA will have a first-round bye and play in the semifinals at 5 p.m. Friday. The final is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday. XULA will attempt to win the conference tournament for the eighth consecutive season.
     
XULA clinched a share of the GCAC regular-season title by winning its home finale Thursday against Tougaloo. By winning Sunday, the Gold Nuggets denied Tougaloo (18-14, 12-2) a shot at sharing the regular-season championship. The Lady Bulldogs finished second, their highest standing in six years. They'll be seeded second at the tournament.
     
Eva Le Guillou had 45 assists — a XULA record for a three-set match — Kayla Black had 20 kills, Vivica Price-Spraggins 11 and Jaida Dowd nine for the Gold Nuggets. XULA outhit Tougaloo .228 to .155 and had advantages of 48-30 in kills, 7-1 in aces and 44-33 in digs.
     
Black and Taylor Ducros had 11 digs apiece. Dowd and Ducros served two aces apiece, and Price-Spraggins and Adili Rikondja each had two blocks.
     
"I'm very proud of our team and all the hard work they put in to win this championship," second-year head coach Pat Kendrick said. "We evolved, we matured, we made adjustments throughout the season.
     
"But obviously we're not finished yet. We're looking forward to the conference tournament and defending that title. Hopefully we'll put together two great matches and qualify again for (NAIA) nationals."

BOX SCORE
     
Formilan's ace capped a 7-1 run that erased Tougaloo's only first-set lead, 12-11. The Gold Nuggets led wire-to-wire in the second set, led by Dowd's ace and five kills, but Black's nine third-set kills nearly went for naught when the Lady Bulldogs rallied from a 22-17 deficit and served for the set at 25-24. But XULA won on its second match point when Black and Price-Spraggins blocked ShonTaesha Zeigler's attack.
     
"We started strong, played hard and communicated the whole time those first two sets. We focused on what we were supposed to do," Black said. "The end of the third set we got distracted or a little complacent. We made too many errors. We need to learn how to finish strong no matter who we're playing or what's going on around us."
     
Carolyne Edwards had 11 kills, eight digs and three blocks for Tougaloo. Megan Besecker, who missed the Thursday match because of an ankle injury, had nine kills but hit .132, more than 100 points lower than her season percentage. Ranked No. 6 in the NAIA with 63 aces, Besecker served none against the Gold Nuggets.
     
NOTES:  The 24 victories are the Gold Nuggets' most ever in the regular season. The previous mark was 23 in 2013 . . . The previous record for assists in a three-set match was 43 by Franziska Pirkl at home against SUNO on Oct. 31, 2015. Pirkl is now a XULA assistant coach . . . Le Guillou became the second Gold Nugget to reach 900 assists in a season. She has 938; Korey Fondel set the XULA record of 993 in 2004 . . . The Gold Nuggets have won 78-of-79 sets against GCAC regular-season opponents during Kendrick's tenure, including the last 41 in a row — a XULA record.

Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications
Department of Athletics & Recreation
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA 
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