October 27, 2025

Red hot Eagles volleyball starts three game road stint at Emory & Henry

Five wins in a row has Eagles volleyball rolling into a three-game road trip that begins with E&H on Tuesday evening.

Carson-Newman

18-3,9-3 SAC

Emory & Henry

3-19,0-13 SAC

Final	1	2	3	T
Carson-Newman 18-3,9-3 SAC	25	25	25	3
Emory & Henry 3-19,0-13 SAC	19	21	11	0

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - Five wins in a row has Eagles volleyball rolling into a three-game road trip that begins with E&H on Tuesday evening.

In the last match for Carson-Newman the Eagles were own two sets to one. But, they leaned into their identity to pull out their third fifth-set win of the season. Holt Fieldhouse was rocking above 90 decibels on this alumni night and homecoming weekend. Fans brought signs and loud voices to help carry heaps of energy through the match.

Hurst logged 20 kills in the five-set effort and Ahsmuhs was right behind with 19. Dziczkowski also pitched in a phenomenal 15 kill night to help the Eagles to a 72 kill performance and a .245 hitting percentage.

Ahsmuhs recorded 20 digs on the night as well, marking her fifth double-double in a row. Trinity Hafey was the next best with 19 digs. Blair Cherry was also on the double-double train, grabbing 51 assists to go along with 12 digs. Addie Smith also had 10 digs.

It was a great serving game for the Eagles, who logged 11 total team service aces throughout the match, which marks a season high. Both Annie Dcizkowski and Blair Cherry led the effort with four aces each.

Hurst was also the leader on the blocking front, notching a season high seven blocks. This is Hurst's 6th game in a row with 10+ kills and her first game of the season with five or more blocks.

With the win, the Eagles improve to 17-3 and 8-3 in the SAC to tie with Lenoir-Rhyne for third place in the conference standings.

This season, the Wasps were projected to finish last in the conference preseason poll. So far, that is the case. The Wasps are 0-12 in SAC play and 3-18 on the season. Since the last time these two teams faced off at the end of September, the Wasps have struggled mightily, losing nine in a row. Their last eight losses have all been sweeps. The three wins have come from out-of-conference opponents against Albany State (Ga.), Virginia Union, and most recently, they won a five-set match against Guildford on September 27th .

The Wasps have improved upon their statistical marks from last season, and currently rank third in the SAC in blocks per set. Gracyn Miller and Haley Harnichar have led the way on the blocking front, combining to provide 1.82 blocks per set. Miller is accounting for 1.00 of those blocks, and currently ranks second among SAC competitors in the category behind Carson-Newman's Bella Cardello, while Harnichar is 11th in the conference. The Wasps also do a decent job from the service line. They rank 6th in the SAC in service aces per set with a 1.65 ace per set clip. However, E&H ranks below everyone in the conference in both the attacking categories as well as digs. Their 9.59 kills per set this season and 0.108 hitting percentage are 25 places away from being the worst in the nation. Their attack is headlined by sophomore Tori Boling, who is averaging 2.14 kills per set and also leads the team in service aces (26). Miller is the sharpest shooter on the squad with a .227 hitting percentage.

Most recently, Emory & Henry Volleyball came up short on the road in South Atlantic Conference play to Anderson (S.C.) University Friday evening. The Trojans picked up the win by set scores of 25-8, 25-12 and 25-12. Junior outside hitter Grace Duey led the way offensively for E&H with three kills, two digs and a service ace while sophomore outside hitter Tori Boling added four kills and five digs. Sophomore setter Zoie Pace recorded a team-high six assists and three digs. Freshman setter Sydni Davis went for five assists, two digs, one block and a kill.

This will be the eighth all-time meeting between the Wasps and Eagles. E&H has never come out on the winning side of the series and has only won two sets against the Eagles all-time. Those two set wins came in the same game on October 27, 2023, when Carson-Newman beat Emory & Henry in five sets. Otherwise, C-N is 22-2 in set wins in the all-time series; all of their wins have been sweeps, save the October 27, 2023 game. The first meeting between Carson-Newman and Emory & Henry was in 1992 under coach Lorri Johnson, where the Eagles won in two sets.

It has been 28 days since these two teams have faced off. The last time out against the Wasps, Carson-Newman volleyball was searching for its first win at home in 300 days, and they got it dominantly, sweeping Emory & Henry with a fifteen-point victory in set three. Addie Smith was the team's leader on the attacking front. The junior put away ten kills while hitting .450 throughout the three sets with a pair of blocks and a service ace to tie a bow on the match. Carson-Newman matched the best blocking team in the conference with six blocks a piece to hold E&H to a .101 hitting percentage. Hurst, Cherry, and Bella Cardello were all tied for the team lead with three blocks each. The Eagles threw punches from every side of the court too, with Ahsmuhs (9), Dziczkowski (8), Hurst (8), and Smith (10) all grabbing sizable kill counts. Blair Cherry was able to provide on the setting front with 35 assists. Every Eagle that took over 10 swings in the match hit above .230. As for E&H, Grace Duey led the way with 7 kills and was followed closely by Tori Boling, who also collected the team's high in digs with 11. Zoie Pace added 14 assists and two service aces for the Wasps. With the win, Carson-Newman moved to 12-2 overall and 3-2 in SAC play and dropped E&H to 3-11 and 0-5 in the SAC.

Last season was rocky for E&H. The Wasps were 5-23 in 2024 with just two SAC wins. They finished tied with Catawba for the bottom of the conference standings, just edging the Catawba Indians in the overall record to finish second from last. The two conference wins for Emory & Henry came in five sets to Coker and a three set sweep of UVA-Wise.

Emory & Henry finished at the bottom of the league in most offensive categories last season, averaging just about 8.5 assists per set while hitting .103 as a team with a 9.52 kills per set tally. They only averaged 12.6 points per set throughout the regular season. It was their defense that proved to be their saving grace last season. The Wasps ranked 11th among conference opponents in digs per set (15.33) but were among the top five in the SAC in blocks per set, averaging the same as Carson-Newman in 2024 (2.04 b/s). However, E&H struggled with serve receive. They had the second-most reception errors among SAC opponents (181).

E&H's graduate student Libby Bickelhaupt finished fifth in the conference in digs per set with 4.91. Another graduate student, Brianna Hogan led the Wasp's attack with 233 kills on the year and 2.51 kills per set. Logan Newberry and Zoie Pace were the main setters for Emory & Henry, averaging 4.80 and 3.70 assists per set, respectively.

There has been a bit of a learning curve for Emory & Henry since entering the SAC conference. The Wasps became members of the league four seasons ago and began conference competition in the 2022-23 season. Since that point, the Wasps' best record in the SAC is 6-12, which occurred during Pam Newberry's first year with the program. E&H has never qualified for the SAC tournament, nor has it ever made the postseason since becoming a Division II program. The Wasps did not play a conference game in 2021, but that was the last time E&H had a winning record (15-11). Before that season, Emory& Henry had not seen an above .500 season since 2016 when they went 16-13 overall and 6-5 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference at the DIII level; that was also the last time they had a winning conference record.

These past two weeks have been record-breaking for the Eagles. Against Tusculum, the Eagles crushed a single-game accuracy record, hitting .616 on the match. This beats a previous match high by nearly .200. On Friday against Coker, matched a 3rd place performance in single game team assists, a record previously set back in 2015. Their 74 kills against the Cobras also lands 3rd in the all-time single game kill performances. The last time a Carson-Newman team slammed home 70 kills was in 2000.

In the individual performance category, Maddie Hurst set records in multiple matches. Against Tusculum on Oct. 14, with 15 kills, Hurst notched the third-highest single-game hitting percentage in C-N volleyball history (.636) and set her season high in kills. The sophomore found her grove this week, landing a career high 23 kills in the Coker match with a .366 hitting percentage. Her 23 kills in the match are the 12th highest all-time by an Eagle in a single match. The last time an Eagle had that many kills was in 2021 when Julia Wheeler accomplished the feat. Also, Emerson Ahsmuhs had 20 kills in the three-set sweep of Mars Hill on Oct. 21, the second most all time from an Eagles hitter in three-set matches. The only Eagle to do better was Molly Locke's 21 kill performance against Newberry on October 2, 2015.

The Eagles' success at the net has been orchestrated by Cherry, who dished 61 assists in the game against Coker on Oct. 17, for a career high that bests her previous mark by six. This mark also ties the most assists in a single game by a Carson-Newman setter in the history of Eagles volleyball. Abby Hildenbrand was the last Eagles' setter to hit that mark in 2021.