Cougars Battle No. 11 BYU Tough in 2015 Season Opener

Box Score

LOS ANGELES – The Chicago State volleyball team opened its 2015 season with a statement in head coach Brandon Reeves' first match with the program Friday night.

The Green and White battled tough against defending national runner-up and No. 11 BYU in the first match of the USC Women of Troy Baden Invitational at the Galen Center before falling in three sets (13-25, 17-25 and 22-25).

BYU jumped out to an early 9-1 lead in the first set on a service ace from Cosy Burnett and later used a quick 9-4 scoring run to increase its leading margin to 18-5 following a Veronica Jones kill. CSU came back to score seven of the next 10 points to slice its deficit to 21-12 with four of those points coming from the serve of senior Essence Jackson-Jones (Muskegon, Mich./Muskegon), but BYU scored four of the final five points to end the set.

The second set opened with nine ties and nine lead changes before a BYU hitting error gave the Green and White a slim 14-13 lead. BYU later closed out the stanza by tallying 12 of the final 15 points which included five consecutive service points from Amy Boswell to head into intermission with a 2-0 lead.

BYU broke a 9-9 tie early in the third set with a 10-5 scoring drive to capture a 19-14 advantage after a kill from Camry Williamson, but CSU then scored eight of the next 12 points played to pull within a single point at 23-22 following a kill from sophomore Arieta Vaimaona (Lauli'i, American Samoa/Faga'itua). The match ended with back-to-back kills by Boswell and Jones.

Vaimaona recorded a match-best 11 kills to lead Chicago State (0-1), while fellow sophomore Shontanae Addison (Little Elm, Texas/Wakeland) produced a match-leading 10 digs. Sophomore Corey Davis (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Thousand Oaks) dished out 21 assists and added seven digs.

Burnett recorded nine kills and Williamson tallied a match-high 25 assists for BYU (1-0).

CSU returns to action tomorrow with a pair of matches at the Galen Center against No. 22 USC (12 p.m., central) and No. 7 North Carolina (7 p.m., central). Both matches will be streamed live online at http://pac-12.com/live/usc.

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Players Mentioned

#14 Shontanae Addison: L/DS; 5' 7"; Sophomore

#16 Arieta Vaimaona: MH; 6' 6"; Sophomore

#6 Corey Davis: S; 5' 9"; Sophomore

Players Mentioned

#14 Shontanae Addison
: 5' 7"; Sophomore
: L/DS

#16 Arieta Vaimaona
: 6' 6"; Sophomore
: MH

#6 Corey Davis
: 5' 9"; Sophomore
: S

Scoreboard

Players Mentioned

#14 Shontanae Addison

#16 Arieta Vaimaona

#6 Corey Davis

Players Mentioned

#14 Shontanae Addison

#16 Arieta Vaimaona

#6 Corey Davis