CHARLOTTE – Charleston Southern concluded their first weekend of action with a 3-1 victory over Elon on Saturday in the Charlotte Invitational. The Bucs recovered from dropping the first set to storm back and claim the next three to seal the win.
 
In the first, Elon and CSU traded the lead until the Phoenixes went on a four-point surge twice late in the set to push themselves ahead enough to get it. The second saw the Buccaneers sprint out to an early edge as they were up 6-2. Elon cut their deficit down to 13-12 at one point, but the Bucs had a 6-1 run to put themselves ahead 19-13.
 
The Buccaneers stuck the gameplan of a fast start in the third as they held an early 11-2 advantage with Ilaria Durante and Mallory Neale delivering consistently strong, deliberate serves. They cruised to the set win by claiming the final nine points of it, putting themselves up 2-1 overall. Neale delivered the serves during the run.
 
The fourth saw the Bucs gain an early lead yet again with them up 7-4 at the start of it. An Elon scoring burst put them up by one, but Charleston Southern immediately answered with a six-point run to lead 14-9 and put themselves back in firm control of the match. The Bucs kept the Phoenixes at bay the rest of the way, not letting them back within three points. A pair of freshmen finished off the victory with a Faith Burch kill off a pass from Kahea Carvalho.
 
Pais-Marden led the team in kills again as she collected 15 in the outing and Skylar Yates finished with 13, her most of the season thus far and added nine digs. Angelika Rusin had an incredible defensive game as she notched 28 digs. Durante dished 28 assists, had ten digs and four service aces. Indigo Young ended with four blocks assists and eight kills, being a continually strong presence at the net.
 
As a team, CSU had a .229 hitting percentage, their significantly highest of the three matches contested over the weekend. In the three sets they won, the mark stood at .291.
 
Charleston Southern will return to the court on Tuesday night as they hit the road for S.C. State in Orangeburg, S.C. With a win, Head Coach Carry Brown will collect the 100^th total of her coaching career.