Belhaven and Huntingdon are scheduled to meet Thursday in the Collegiate Conference of the South volleyball tournament quarterfinals, with the winner advancing to face top-seeded Covenant on Friday. The match is listed for 5:30 p.m. Central at Barnes PE Center in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where the tournament’s three rounds are being held.
Belhaven enters as the No. 5 seed with an 11-15 overall record and a 6-6 conference mark. No. 4 Huntingdon also finished 6-6 in league play and earned the higher seed by winning both regular-season matchups. The Hawks went 9-14 overall.
The teams’ two meetings this season were close in total points: Huntingdon outscored Belhaven 172-167 over eight sets. In the Sept. 22 match in Jackson, Belhaven came within a point of taking the fourth set when Laila Gauthier put the Blazers ahead 24-23. Salome De Jesus responded with a kill and an ace, and Jessie Eunice and A’Kirra McElveen combined for a block to send the match to a fifth set. Huntingdon won the decider 15-13. The Hawks took the Nov. 3 rematch in Montgomery in straight sets.
Belhaven served 19 aces across the two matches, compared with 12 for Huntingdon. The Hawks held a 15-8 advantage in blocks, with McElveen involved in 13 of Huntingdon’s blocks. McElveen leads the CCS with 88 blocks, averaging 1.05 per set. Huntingdon leads the conference in team blocks at 1.82 per set, while Belhaven ranks third in aces per set at 2.03.
The Blazers have reached the CCS quarterfinals in each of the conference’s five seasons but are seeking their first tournament victory. They lost to Berea in 2022, Maryville in 2023, Huntingdon in 2024 and Covenant in 2025. The programs’ only previous tournament meeting was in 2024, when Huntingdon won 3-1. Belhaven’s most recent win in the all-time series came in four sets on Oct. 30, 2025; the series is tied 10-10.
Belhaven recovered from an 0-5 start to win nine of its next 12 matches. That run included the program’s first victory over Asbury, a reverse sweep on Sept. 26 that ended a streak of 14 straight sets lost to the Eagles. It also began a four-match conference winning streak. Belhaven beat second-seeded LaGrange twice, including a road win, and enters the tournament hitting .163 and averaging 11.13 kills per set. Both figures are the program’s best in its five CCS seasons, according to the team preview.
Sophomore Tarryn Woodall leads the conference with 4.00 points per set and ranks second with 3.40 kills per set. She has 323 kills this season, becoming the first Belhaven player to reach 300 in a season since the program joined the CCS. Setter Maggie Joy Tomlin leads the league in assists per set at 6.73 and aces per set at 0.62, and has 532 assists this season.
Senior Megan LaCour has 968 career kills and 970 digs, and recorded 20 kills in the Jackson meeting with Huntingdon and 12 without an error in Montgomery. Kayla Robinson leads the CCS with 5.15 digs per set and is six short of 500 this season. Cami Davis leads Belhaven with 65 blocks. Freshman Gauthier has 171 kills, while freshman setter Angel Edwards had 27 assists and 11 digs in the regular-season finale against Rhodes.
Covenant went 12-0 in conference play and is scheduled to host the quarterfinal winner Friday at 5:30 p.m. Central.
