ST. AUGUSTINE – Flagler College looked to be on its way to a sweep, but a determined Armstrong State University side forced a five-set match which the Saints won (25-17, 25-21, 26-28, 14-25, 15-11) in a match-up of Peach Belt Conference volleyball rivals Wednesday night at Flagler Gymnasium.

Flagler extended its winning streak to three matches and improved to 16-5 overall and 9-3 in the Peach Belt. The Saints also broke a nine-match losing streak to the Pirates. Armstrong lost its second match in a row, and its fourth in its last five matches, and fell to 12-8 overall and 8-4 in conference play.

Flagler played a solid two sets and had a chance for the sweep, up 24-23, but Armstrong would not go away. Raquel Kulak earned a kill due to a blocking error by Flagler's Ashley Cheewah to tie the set at 24. Megan Hooks put the Saints up by one again with a kill, but that was short-lived as Cheewah had an attack error to tie the score again. She redeemed herself with a kill on the next sideout to give the Saints a 26-25 lead. But a pair of kills by Raegan Grooms and Anna McGee, on set point, turned the tide of the match in favor of Armstrong. The Pirates won 28-26.
 
The Pirates carried that momentum into a 25-14 win in the fourth set to force a deciding fifth set.

Three consecutive miscues by the Pirates forced the court-swap. A service error by Brittany Hereth, Emily Wylie hit into a double-block by Taja Valmyr and Cheewah, and a setting error by Carly Eiken gave the Saints an 8-5 cushion. Later, a hitting error by Flagler's Sara Davis tied the score at 9-all. But Armstrong had two more costly errors which swung the momentum back to Flagler's side. Kristi Vaughn had a service error and McGee had a hitting error that followed a kill by Davis to give the Saints a 13-10 lead. Cheewah and Hooks closed the match with a double-block on McGee.

The 11.0 total team blocks were the most by the Saints since the match at Georgia College on Oct. 3. Cheewah accounted for six total blocks. She hit .545 with seven kills and one error on 11 swings.

Davis finished with a team-high 12 kills and added five total blocks. Valmyr contributed 10 kills. Hooks tacked on eight kills and three block assists. Caitlyn Kovach collected 17 digs while Tara Savisky registered 39 assists and seven digs.

McGee recorded a match-high 22 kills for the Pirates. Wylie contributed 15 kills and hit .312 with five errors on 32 swings. Grooms collected 23 digs and Iva Scepanovic had 17 more. Vaughn finished with 33 assists.

The Pirates had 17 service errors. Armstrong was contained to low hitting percentages (.081 and .048) in the second and fifth sets.

Flagler welcomes in Georgia College on Friday (Oct. 30) at 7 p.m. at Flagler Gymnasium.