BALTIMORE, Md. (Sept. 30, 2018)-The Morgan State volleyball team will search for its first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) victory of the season when it travels to Norfolk, Va. to take on the Norfolk State Spartans on Sunday afternoon. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Gill Gymnasium.
 
Morgan State (8-9, 0-1 MEAC) is coming off a 3-1 (22-25, 25-15, 15-25, 20-25) loss on the road to Howard on Friday in the MEAC opener for both teams. The loss would end a season-long three-match winning streak for the Lady Bears.
 
Cristen Coryatt notched a double-double with 12 kills and 14 digs. Zoe McBride finished with 10 kills, Jasmin Hubbard had 12 digs and Brook Adams added 11 digs, as Morgan State recorded 51 digs for the contest.
 
The Lady Bears have been paced by Coryatt with 3.81 kills per contest and is adding 2.61 digs per set. Zoe McBride is adding 3.22 kills and 2.25 digs to go with a team-leading 27 service aces. Roi Wallace leads the team with 10.08 assists per set and Jasmin Hubbard leads the Lady Bears with 4.05 digs. Kalysia Bates has a team-best 58 blocks.
 
Norfolk State (1-10, 0-1 MEAC) is also in search of its first MEAC victory of the season. The Spartans were dealt a 3-0 (25-20, 25-18, 25-23) loss on Friday in their MEAC home opener to Coppin State.
 
Anna Rupertova led the Spartans with nine kills and seven digs. Bojana Bolozan added six kills and three blocks. Taylor Eichelberger finished with a team-high eight digs and had two aces.
 
Rupertova leads the Spartans in both kills (1.97) and digs (1.86) per set. Bolozan is chipping in with 1.63 kills per set and leads the team with 25 blocks. Halley McKnight is averaging 3.27 assists per outing and has a team-best 15 aces.
 
ALL-TIME SERIES AGAINST NORFOLK STATE: This will be the 27th meeting between the two programs with Morgan State holding a 21-5 all-time series advantage. The Lady Bears have won the last six straight matches.
 
NEXT UP: The Lady Bears will visit crosstown rival Coppin State on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. at the Physical Education Complex Arena on the Coppin State campus.
 
BOZIER ONE SHY OF 450 VICTORIES: Morgan State head coach Ramona Riley-Bozier entered the 2018 season needing nine more wins to reach career victory No. 450, is now just one win away. On Saturday, Sept. 22, she picked up her 449th victory, following a 3-0 sweep of South Carolina State in the finale of the Charm City Classic in Baltimore, Md. Riley-Bozier, who is the all-time winningest coach at Morgan State in any sport with 449 career victories as the volleyball coach, is also the softball program's all-time career leader with 161 victories in the nine seasons she served as head coach.
 
TRACKING WALLACE: Roi Wallace has recorded 2,218 career assists thus far, which ranks third on the Morgan State charts. She set a career-high 60 assists earlier this season in a win over Saint Peter's (8/29).
 
HUBBARD CLOSING IN ON 1,000 DIGS: Junior libero Jasmin Hubbard recorded 12 digs at Howard (9/28), giving her 851 career digs. Hubbard is now 149 digs away from reaching the 1,000-digs plateau.
 
CORYATT, BATES NAMED TO CHARM CITY CLASSIC TEAM: Senior Cristen Coryatt and sophomore Kalysia Bates were named to the Charm City Classic All-Tournament team (9/23). A native of Sugar Land, Texas, Coryatt would hit for .279, while totaling 23 kills, 14 digs and four aces in five sets played. The 5-9 outside hitter finished with a match-high 21 kills, a .321 hitting percentage, nine digs and two aces in a four-set win over North Carolina A&T (9/21). Bates finished with nine total blocks, including three solo, 16 kills, seven digs and three aces. A native of Phenix, Ala., Bates recorded five blocks, one solo and added four digs, eight kills and an ace in a four-set victory over North Carolina A&T. She added five blocks, including two solo to go with three digs, two aces, eight kills and hit for .353 in the finale over the Lady Bulldogs.
 
MORGAN PICKED THIRD IN MEAC NORTH: Morgan State was picked to finish third in the northern division of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) preseason poll, as voted by the league's head coaches and sports information directors. Last year, the Lady Bears were picked to finish third and went 8-18 overall, 7-5 in the MEAC good for a third-place finish.
 
BOZIER ENTERS 31ST SEASON: Morgan State head coach Ramona Riley-Bozier is in the midst of her 31st season at the helm of the Lady Bear program. The all-time winningest coach at Morgan State (449), Riley-Bozier guided the Lady Bears to 88 consecutive MEAC Northern Division wins between 1994-2003. She has led MSU to five MEAC Championships, three NCAA Tournament appearances and earned MEAC Coach of the Year honors five times. Bozier also coached the softball team at MSU for nine seasons and in 1999 led the team to its only MEAC title game appearance. A native of Kansas City, Mo., Bozier, is a graduate of Morgan State, where she was a two-sport start in volleyball and track. She is one of 11 players in the history of the program to have registered 1,000 career kills. On the track, Bozier was a three-time All-American and one of the top triple jumpers at Morgan. She still holds the UMBC meet record in the 60 meter dash (1983) and ran the first leg of the 4X100 relay, which in 1986 set the school record in a time of 44.47 seconds, which also still stands. That squad would also win the Penn Relays and finished second that year at the Division I National Championships. Bozier was inducted into the Morgan State Hall of Fame in 2003.
   
UNBEATEN STREAKS STILL INTACT: Morgan State entered the season unbeaten against four of its opponents and remained that way, following victories over Niagara (13-0), Prairie View A&M (2-0), Jackson State (2-0) and South Carolina State (22-0). The Lady Bears first faced Niagara on Aug. 31 in the Golden Flashes Classic and swept the Purple Eagles. Morgan State then met both Prairie View A&M and Jackson State in the New Orleans Tournament on Sept. 7 and swept the Panthers, before needing five sets to defeat the Jackson State Tigers. Last week Morgan State played host to South Carolina State on Sept. 22 in the finale of the Charm City Classic and swept the Lady Bulldogs.
  
CAPTAINS ANNOUNCED: Seniors Monette Daniels and Cristen Coryatt were named as the 2018 captains, while juniors Roi Wallace and Jasmin Hubbard were named as co-captains.
  
FOUR NAMED TO MEAC ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM: Morgan State had four players named to the 2017 MEAC Volleyball All-Academic Team, based on their academic success during the 2016-17 school year. Two of the four recognized (Jasmin Hubbard and Roi Wallace) return for the 2018 season. Kheanna Landrum and Wallace were also named to the MEAC Commissioner's All-Academic Team for maintaining a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better during the 2017-18 academic year.
  
WELCOME TO THE CAVE: The Lady Bears welcome the addition of seven newcomers to the 2018 squad, six of which are freshman and  one sophomore transfer. Those newcomers are freshmen Sara Brown (Bowie, Md.), Nia Smith (Odenton, Md.), Zoe McBride (Ridgefield, Wash.), Morgan Eugene (Brandywine, Md.), Jasmin Perry (Bowie, Md.) and Brook Adams (Phoenix, Ariz.) along with sophomore transfer Kalysia Bates (Phenix, Ala.).
 
SAYING GOODBYE: Morgan State will say goodbye to four seniors, Monette Daniels, Kheanna Landrum, Deja Lester and Cristen Coryatt prior to its regular season finale 'Senior Day' match against crosstown rival Coppin State on Nov. 4 at Hill Field House.
 
2018 MEAC CHAMPIONSHIP: This year's 2018 MEAC volleyball championship will take place November 16-18 in Washington, D.C. at Burr Gymnasium on the campus of the Howard University.