Samford Advances To SoCon Championship Final After Sweeping The Citadel

Saturday, November 18

Spartanburg, S.C.

4:00 PM

Samford University

16-14,9-7SoCon

The Citadel

27-3,14-2SoCon

Team	1	2	3	Final F
Samford	25	25	25	3
The Citadel	20	21	22	0

Samford Advances To SoCon Championship Final After Sweeping The Citadel

11.18.23 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – For the second-straight season, the Samford volleyball team will play in the SoCon Volleyball Championship final after the Bulldogs earned a 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-22) sweep of the top-seeded Citadel.

Samford will play the winner of the Chattanooga and Wofford match at 3 p.m. CT on Sunday in Spartanburg for The Southern Conference's auto bid to the NCAA tournament. The Championship final will be streamed on ESPN+.

The Bulldogs were led on Saturday afternoon by SoCon Freshman of the Year Kaleigh Meritt, who had a match-high 14 kills, 10 digs and a pair of aces. Gracie Lynn Butler joined Meritt in double figures with 13 kills of her own. The Junior filled out the rest of her stat line with 13 digs and a pair of blocks.

Kayla Keshock dished out a match-best 26 assists and Lexi Thatcher added 16 more of her own.

In the opening set, Samford jumped out to a 9-3 lead out of the gate. The Citadel stormed back to tie it at 13-all before The Birmingham Bulldogs rode the wave of back-to-back 3-0 mini runs to put the first set away at 25-20.

The second set featured more of a back-and-forth game that saw the Bulldogs from Charleston lead in the later stages at 21-20 before Ally Cordes landed a trio of kills to complete the 25-21 comeback.

After falling behind 3-0, Samford answered the bell once again with an 8-1 run of their own. In the heart of the third and final set, The Bulldogs led by as many as six at 18-12. The Citadel made it a game late before Samford pulled away at the end to secure its spot in the final with a 25-22 third-set win.

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