Written By: Neil Frawley

The Valdosta State volleyball team captured its seventh victory in a row Tuesday night when they hosted Rollins College out of the Sunshine State Conference.

With the win, the Blazers also improved to 13-3, and remain unbeaten on their home floor at 8-0.

RC entered the contest with six losses, but come from a conference that is notorious for its volleyball prowess, as it is home to the No. 1 team in Division II volleyball, the University of Tampa.

“Even though they have five or six losses, (their losses) all to really top quality teams,” head coach Mike Swan said.  “So I knew coming in this was going to be a really tough match.”

Though VSU put their opponent away in four sets, it didn’t appear as easy as the score indicated.

RC’s strong defense made it really tough on VSU’s hitters, racking up a total of 87 digs compared to VSU’s 74 digs.

Despite being thrown off their offense a bit, Swan was very pleased with his own defense, which recorded a total 10 team blocks, including seven for Destiny Berry.

“I thought our defense was good,” Swan said. “I think that was a big difference between games one and two. They had to change their offense because they normally run with middle (hitters) a lot, and one of them hit zero (percent) for the night. Their best middle, we completely shut her down.”

Senior setter Jessica Codato had an impressive performance as she recorded 48 assists and hit 33 percent.

It’s the second time Codato reached the 48 mark this season, and is the fifth time she recorded 40 or more assists in a single match.

VSU will need more performances like these in order to get by the next week as they get ready to play more Sunshine State Conference teams, including No. 1 UT.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for us to go out of conference and play some different competition, and see how we stack up against them,” Swan said. “And to see if we can keep getting better, and improve on things we know that we need to.”

With so many big matchups up ahead, Swan is informing his players that there’s no time for breaks over the next week.

“”It’s going to be seven tough matches in a row for us, and if we don’t step up and play well, we could get thumped pretty easily.”

The Blazers play four games in two days this weekend.