BANNER ELK, N.C. – The University of South Carolina Aiken volleyball team closed the curtains on their season opening tournament Saturday afternoon going 2-2 over the two-day Carolina Challenge at Williams Gymnasium. The Pacers fell early in the morning 3-1 to Palm Beach Atlantic before turning the tides and taming the Cobras of Coker College 3-0 on Saturday afternoon.

Attack errors proved to be the achilles heel for the Pacer volleyball team Saturday morning as they dropped their first match of the day 3-1 to the Sail Fish.

The Fish defeated the Pacers 25-15 in the first set before a flicker of life lifted the Pacers 25-22 in the second set. However, the Fish surged and took the last two sets 25-18 and 25-13 to take the match win.

Senior Megan Disney (Knoxville, Tenn./Karns) and freshman power hitter Leah Rodgers (Longwood, Fla./Lake Mary) led the Pacer attack with double digit kills. Disney recorded 13 kills on 21 attacks to hit .429 in the contest with three blocks while Rodgers provided 12 kills and two blocks of her own.

Ashley Farwell (Wake Forest, N.C./Wake Forest) recorded her first double-double of the season with 30 assists and 10 digs.

Janeen McCormick led all players in the match with 15 kills while Allie Warren led both sides with 24 digs in the contest.

Neither team had the advantage in kills as the Sail Fish barely out hit the Pacers 46-42, but 37 attack errors committed by the Pacers compared to just 16 by the Fish proved to be the match-changer.

The Pacers were able to bounce back in the second match from their earlier attack error issues as head coach Glenn Cox utilized the depth on his roster with all 15 players seeing action against the Cobras over the three-game match. USC Aiken dominated Coker 25-12, 25-18 and 25-18 to reach .500 on the season.

Once again the tandem of Disney and Rodgers led the scoring drive for the Pacers each securing nine kills in the match. Sophomore slugger Shannon Byers (Morristown, Minn./Faribault) chipped in eight of her own to USC Aiken's total of 36 kills.

Sophomore setters Farwell and Alex Petock (Woodbridge, Va./Woodbridge) each did their part in the match with double-digit assists. Farwell recorded 18 assists and three service aces while Petock added 13 assists of her own.

Samantha Lukralle (Lindenhurst, N.Y./Lindenhurst) continued to lead the Pacer back row with 11 digs to lead all players and give her double-digit digs in all four matches of the weekend.

Katie McElveen secured a team-high seven kills and nine digs for the Cobras who only managed to hit .026 in the match. Ten Pacers recorded at least one kill with the team hitting .227 off 36 kills to the Cobras' 19.

USC Aiken will get six days of practice before playing host to the USC Aiken Volleyball Invitational at the Convocation Center in Aiken, S.C. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10 and 11.