MORRISTOWN, TN -- Walters State had no trouble in racking up its seventh straight Tennessee Community College Athletic Association victory as the Lady Senators rolled to an easy victory over visiting Cleveland State Thursday night.
The Lady Senators dropped their opening TCCAA match of the season but hasn't lost since in moving to the top of the league standings.
Walters State won the opening set 25-14, claimed the second by 25-20 and took an easy 25-12 win in the third set for their 11th win against eight losses for the season.
The Lady Cougars scored the first three points in the first set and that proved to be their biggest lead of the night.
It was the eighth league loss without a victory for Cleveland State which is now 5-14 for the season.
Lady Senators coach Megan Blalock, who notched her 98th career win with the victory, said, "I thought we played pretty well tonight.
"We were really efficient offensively in the first and third sets even though we slacked off a little in the second," she added. "I'm happy that we've made some good improvement since earlier in the year.
"Sometimes when you play a team that doesn't have a really good record, it's easy to get caught up in playing at the same level as the other team," stated the coach. "But we didn't do that tonight. We stayed focused on what we needed to do and went out there and did it.
"I thought Kenzie (Sweigart) played well for us," Blalock added. "She swung more consistently than she has in a couple of weeks and that was nice to see. She was aggressive on the net and did a great job."
Jordan Moore led the Lady Senators' attack with 10 kills and 4 blocked shots. Sweigart added nine kills and scored on a couple of dinks. Lydia Buchanan banged down seven kills and Raenah Barton five.
Cleveland didn't have a lot of kills in the match as Bri Parks topped the Lady Cougars with four. Megan Lee, who left with an ankle injury early in the second set and Madeline Dasher chipped in two each as most of the visitors' points came on hitting errors by the Lady Senators.
After falling behind in the opening set, the home team ran off seven straight points to grab the lead. Moore and Sweigart both had kills and Parker Hurd served an ace in the spurt.
It was 8-5 when a pair of former Jefferson County stars led a 5-0 run to break the game open. Sydney Keck flipped the ball back over the net instead of setting to start the streak and Bella Webb served four straight points. Buchanan had a kill and also found an open sport on the back row for another point.
The teams played on even terms for a few points before Walters State closed the match with a 7-2 run. Moore and Sweigart had kills and Barton added consecutive kills before a kill sailed out of bounds for the Lady Cougars to end the set.
In the second set, it was tied four times before the Lady Cougars scored three straight points to grab a 10-8 advantage.
However, Buchanan had three kills and Moore and Keck added one each with Moore blocking a pair of shots as the home team reeled off seven straight points with former Morristown West standout Faith Heskett serving.
Cleveland scored two straight but the Lady Senators moved out to a 23-15 advantage as Sweigart had two kills and Abby Blankenship, Moore and Buchanan added one each.
But Walters State had five straight hitting errors as Cleveland got within three before two straight errors by the visitors ended the set.
The final set was all Lady Senators as they grabbed a quick 6-1 lead behind the serving of Takiya Curry. From that point it was never close.
Sweigart had three kills as Walters State closed with a 10-2 run.