PASADENA, Texas – A balanced effort on defense helped Blinn College volleyball to a slim 3-2 victory over San Jacinto College-Central Tuesday night in Pasadena.
Balance was on both sides of the ball for the Buccaneers as the season record for Blinn improves to 14-7 overall and 3-1 in conference with the win by the score of 25-17, 18-25, 25-19, 24-26 and 16-14.
“We worked a lot this last week on going out and earning our points and we did well with that,” said Blinn head coach Kalie Mader. “We also had a lot of balance on the offensive end.”
Blinn had three players in double-digits for kills led by Abolanle Onipede with 17 and a .441 hitting percentage. Both Alexis Kingston and Danusia Borgeaud had an outstanding all-around match as Kingston had 15 kills and 15 digs while Borgeaud had 12 kills and 22 digs.
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The Buccaneers ability to get the tough digs is what helped them get the victory as Dana Teets added 17 digs and Gaia Gbola had 12 digs as Blinn finished with 79 total digs. Jordyn Keamo was busy all match dishing out 58 assists in the victory.
“To have four players with double digit digs made the defensive difference for us,” Mader said. “We had some great defensive effort plays that were key.”
The match really couldn’t have been much closer as Blinn came out grabbing the momentum in the first set and won it 25-17 but then San Jacinto countered that with a 25-18 win in the second set to knot the match up at 1-1.
The Buccaneers grabbed a 2-1 lead in sets with a 25-19 win in the third but were unable to come away with a four-set victory as San Jacino battled back to force a fifth set with a 26-24 victory in the fourth. The match stayed close in the fifth set but it was Blinn coming out on top 16-14 to seal the victory.
Blinn will have another road match Friday, Sept. 25 at Lee College at 6 p.m.
Blinn has competed in intercollegiate athletics since 1903 and captured 32 NJCAA national championships since 1987. For more information, visit: www.buccaneersports.com.
