LAKE CHARLES—There's no place like home and home is where McNeese volleyball picked up its first win of the 2018 season in front of a packed Memorial Gym.
 
McNeese (1-10) put its experiences learned from the first 10 grueling matches of the season to good use tonight to pick up a straight set (25-16, 25-22, 25-17) win over Southern (0-8).
 
"I'm really proud of our kids tonight," said head coach Ashleigh Fitzgerald. "They've adapted and accepted a lot of changes this year, and I like the way our team felt on the floor tonight. Southern is a good team and they made us earn a lot of points and didn't spot us any," Fitzgerald said.
 
The Cowgirls got off to a rocky start, falling behind 4-0 in the opening set before picking up their first point on a Katelyn Elliott kill. Elliott continued her dominating performance and ended the match with a .444 hitting percent.
 
Elliott and freshman Paige Havel both led McNeese with nine kills apiece. The nine kills for Havel is a season high. As good as Havel was on offense, she was just as impressive on defense, where she tied her season high with a match high five blocks.
 
Keegan Nelms picked up where she left off last weekend and collected eight kills and a .333 hitting percent.
 
Meanwhile, sophomore setter Caitlin Sharrock came away with a career high 34 assists while Angela McGownd picked up 13 digs to lead all players.
 
McNeese eventually tied the first set and took the lead for good on a kill by Havel for a 16-14 lead. The Cowgirls outscored Southern 9-2 the rest of the way to claim the first set.
 
The second set was back and forth until a kill by Elliott sparked a Cowgirl run that included three straight points off the serve of Alexandra Aguilera for a 23-19 Cowgirl lead. A Southern hitting error and a kill by Allison Lippert gave McNeese the second set win and an overall 2-0 match lead.
 
Lippert's serve in the final set helped McNeese to a 13-9 lead then Aguilera served for six straight points to extend the Cowgirl lead to 21-11.
 
Southern took advantage of a few Cowgirl errors to score five straight points to cut the lead to 23-17. McNeese also took advantage of a Southern error late in the set to move to set point. A huge block assists by Lippert and Nelms on the final point of the set, sealed the victory.
 
McNeese will head to Houston this weekend for its final regular season tournament at Rice.