SPARTANBURG, SC—USC Upstate swept visiting NJIT decisively Saturday afternoon in Atlantic Sun Conference women's volleyball.
 
The two teams entered Saturday's match tied in the A-Sun standings, but the Spartans surged ahead of the Highlanders in emphatic fashion, taking the three sets easily, 25-13, 25-10, and 25-11.
 
The result leaves USC Upstate with a 2-8 conference record and a 14-12 overall mark, while NJIT is 1-9 in the A-Sun and 6-20 overall.
 
NJIT got the first point of the day on a kill by Tess Albyn, but USC Upstate answered with nine straight points for a 9-1 advantage. After that, the Highlanders got as close as 5-11, but the Spartans pushed their advantage higher after that and won the opening frame by 12 points.
 
As it happened, the first set was NJIT's best, as Upstate scored the first seven points of the second set and later had a 9-0 run to go up 23-7 en route to a 25-10 win.
 
The Highlanders began the third set with a 4-1 lead, but the home team ran off a 9-1 spurt to take control of what would be the clinching frame.
 
The winners thrived on a combination of their best attacking match of the season and NJIT errors. The Spartans hit a season-best .461 on Saturday, with 41 kills and just 6 errors in 76 swings.
 
Junior middle Emily Koelling was nearly unstoppable for the home team, knocking down 12 kills without an error in 15 attempts. Alexa Lagaly had 8 kills and one error in 17 attempts and senior Kayla Eversgerd had 10 kills and three errors in 18 swings.
 
On the other side, NJIT had one of its worst hitting matches of the season, with 19 kills and 21 errors in 83 attempts. Danica Vukotic paced the Highlanders with five kills.
 
USC Upstate had two setters, with Lexi Gober getting 19 assists and Madison Haake adding 16. For NJIT, sophomore Alyssa Armada finished with 10 assists.
 
A team that has served as many as 16 aces in a match this season, NJIT managed just two against USC Upstate, with Armada and Adriana Nieto each getting one ace. USC Upstate notched six service aces topped by two each from Eversgerd and Gober.
 
On defense, the victors got nine digs apiece from Haake and Eversgerd, while Nieto, the freshman libero, topped NJIT with eight digs.
 
The Spartans had four total team blocks led by three block assists from Koelling, while Anneka Harris and Nina Vukotic combined on NJIT's one block.
 
NJIT returns home to play its final non-conference match of the season  with a 7 pm match on Wednesday in the Fleisher Athletic Center against Manhattan.
 
Peter Volkert, in his second season as head coach of the Highlanders, guided Manhattan for seven seasons from 1997 through 2003. His 132 wins is the career record for Manhattan coaches and he led the team to three Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championships and berths in the NCAA Tournament that went with the MAAC titles.