Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Bourbonnais, Ill. – Today the Columbia College women's volleyball team took the court in the second day of the Olivet Nazarene Holiday Inn Express Invite Tournament in Bourbonnais, Illinois. In the first match of the day the Cougars defeated St. Xavier (Ill.) University in five sets (20-25, 26-24, 25-15, 21-25, 15-11). In the second match the Cougars defeated Olivet Nazarene in three straight sets (25-19, 25-18, 25-20). With the victories the Cougars improve to 5-7 on the season.

In the first match against St. Xavier, the Cougars jumped out to an early lead but were not able to hold off the opposing Cougars as they lost the set 25-20. Columbia College had 15 kills on a .250 attacking percentage in the set.

The Cougars were able to bounce back in the second set matching St. Xavier point for point throughout the entire game. However, with the score tied at 24, Eirini Chatziefstratiadou came up with a huge kill to put the Cougars up by one and then an attacking error from St. Xavier solidified the second set victory for Columbia College with a final score of 26-24. The Cougars got off to a slow start in the third set finding themselves down by a score 6-3 early. However, Columbia College went on a 7-2 run and never looked back taking the third set by a score of 25-15.

In the fourth set of the match Columbia College found themselves down early again and were not able to catch up to St. Xavier University as they took the set 25-21. St. Xavier University had 15 kills in the set compared to just 10 from the Cougars.The fifth and final set was all Columbia College. They jumped out to an early 5-0 lead and cruised to the decisive 15-11 victory. The win improved the Cougars record to 4-7 on the season.

Columbia College picked up a match high 26 kills from Pieyi Liu and match high 51 assists from Sashiko Heredia. Eirini Chatziefstratiadou added 15 kills for the Cougars and Maria Franco tacked on 10 to the impressive 70 from Columbia College on a .257 attacking percentage.

The Cougars got off to a good start in the second match of the day going on an 8-1 run against Olivet Nazarene University to start the game as they took the first set 25-19. Columbia College had 20 kills in the set on a .447 attacking percentage. The second set started neck-and-neck as both teams exchanged points early. With the score tied at 13, the Cougars went on a 7-2 run and were able to hold off the Tigers attack as they took the second set by a score of 25-18. In the third set, the Cougars found themselves down 20-17 late in the game before going on a 9-0 run to end the set. Columbia College was able to complete the three set sweep after defeating the Tigers by a score of 25-20

Peiyi Liu and Sashiko Heredia led the way for the Cougars once again as Liu had a match high 21 kills and Heredia had a match high 45 assists. Caroline Clifford also had 12 kills in the game as Columbia College had a total of 51 on a .294 attacking percentage.

The Cougars are back in action on Wednesday, September 21^st when Lindenwood (Ill.) University-Belleville comes to town. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Southwell Complex.