Columbia, Mo. – The ninth ranked Columbia College volleyball team took the court today as they hosted the 2019 Columbia College Fall Classic where they faced the Wiley (Texas) College Wildcats and the 13^th ranked Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) College Blue Raiders on day one. The Cougars defeated the Wildcats 3-0 (25-20, 25-23, 25-21) and the Blue Raiders 3-2 (17-25, 25-23, 28-26, 23-25, 15-5) to improve to 21-2 on the season.
 
It was a tight first set between the Cougars and the Wildcats, but an ace from Jaqueline Silva gave Columbia the breakaway they needed to take the set. The Columbia offense struggled in the second set with Wiley's scrappy defense, but Kiersten Anderson held nothing back and added the final five kills to win set two. The Cougars kept their momentum heading into the third set taking a 14-6 lead. Despite the Wildcats attempt to change the game by going on a 7-2 run late in the set, the Cougars came up on top claiming the match.
 
Sidney Branson led the way for the Cougars racking up 15 kills. In addition, Anderson had 12 kills, Luisa Ferreira tallied 39 assists, and Ellie Rockers picked up 16 digs.
 
Although the Cougars came up with two more kills than the Blue Raiders did, Lindsey Wilson limited themselves to just two hitting errors for a 0.393 hitting percentage which outweighed Columbia's 0.220 hitting percentage to drop the first set. In the second set, the Cougars found their spark after a kill from Branson tied the game at 23 and a service ace from Ferreira tied the match. Set three had Columbia and Lindsey Wilson evenly matched until the very end when Adianez Rivera took control of the net to give the Cougars the 2-1 lead in the match. Columbia made several attempts in the fourth set to get ahead of the Blue Raiders, but fell short as they dug themselves in a hole early on which then forced the game into a fifth set. The Cougars were able to shut down the Blue Raiders early in the final set keeping them out of system as Columbia went on a ten-point run to claim the victory and keep their win streak alive.
 
Rivera led the way with a season high 26 kills. Branson and Anderson also broke in the double digits as they added 18 and 14 kills, respectively, while Ferreira dished out a career high 65 assists, and Rockers tallied 17 digs.
 
The Cougars will be back in action tomorrow in day two of the 2019 Columbia College Fall Classic. They are set to play Kansas Wesleyan University at 11 a.m. and William Woods University at 1 p.m. in Southwell Complex.