Georgia Southern Volleyball Off To A Hot Start

Coming off of a 22-7 season that ended with a 2nd Round exit in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship in 2024, the Georgia Southern Volleyball team is off to a hot start in 2025. On August 23rd, the Eagles played an exhibition match at Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia against the South Carolina Gamecocks. The two teams played a full five sets even though Georgia Southern won the first three which normally would end a regular season match. The Eagles won that exhibition 4-1 and moved on to regular season preparation.

This past weekend, Georgia Southern traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to play in the North Florida Sunshine Tournament against North Florida and the University of Illinois Chicago. The Eagles dropped the first set of the match against North Florida 25-17, but went on to win the next three sets 25-22, 25-17, and 25-23 respectively. Kirsten Barrett set the school record with 9 aces in the match while adding 42 assists. Reagan Barth played lights out and led the way with 21 kills in the match. Newcomer, Maddie Cugino, came up big time after time and finished with 25 digs.

In the second match of the weekend, the Eagles went a full five sets with the University of Illinois Chicago Flames. Georgia Southern won the first set 25-15, lost the next two sets 25-19, 25-13 before finishing of the match in sets four and five 25-20 and 15-8. This group showed a ton of resiliency in fighting back after trailing. Kirsten Barrett had another 40 assist performance against the Flames, Maddie Cugino had another 25 digs, and Reagan Barth once again led the way with 13 kills and 8 blocks.

Georgia Southern Volleyball played their home opener on September 2nd against The Citadel in the friendly confines of Hanner Fieldhouse. In the lopsided match, Georgia Southern swept the Bulldogs 3-0 winning the three sets 25-11, 25-11 and 25-16. Lexi Duffy finished the match with 22 assists and 3 blocks, Reagan Barth led the way with 9 kills, and Maddie Cugino had 15 digs in the match.

After the weekend’s matches, two Eagles were honored by the Sun Belt Conference. Maddie Cugino was named Defensive Player of the Week and Kirsten Barrett was named Setter of the Week. Georgia Southern is off to 3-0 start and looks poised to make another run at a Sun Belt Conference Championship again in 2025. Two Eagles were honored