GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - The Newberry Wolves fought back from a two sets to one disadvantage Friday night to take a key South Atlantic Conference and Southeast Region match over the Tusculum Pioneers in five sets (22-25, 25-19, 19-25, 27-25, 15-13) in Pioneer Arena.

Newberry moves to 17-9 overall and 11-8 in SAC play, establishing a new program record for conference wins in a season. The Wolves still have three SAC matches at home next week to close the regular season, hosting Anderson on Tuesday, Catawba on Friday and Queens on Saturday. Tusculum is now 17-8 overall and 12-6 in league play. The match was key to both teams, as Tusculum is ranked fourth in the NCAA Division II Southeast Region and Newberry is ranked fifth in that ranking.

Both teams put forth stellar defensive efforts, as the Wolves had no players with double digit kills and hit only . 089, while Tusculum hit only .102 in the match. Newberry had 126 digs, while Tusculum had 123 digs.

Elayni Stokes (Houston, Texas) was Newberry's most prolific defensive player with 42 digs, while Samantha Parrish (Angola, Ind.) dug out 34 balls to go with seven kills and four blocks.

Lisa Ross (Bowling Green, Ky.) had 13 digs and Newberry's setters each posted double-doubles as Chelsea Mayor (Sugar Land, Texas) had 25 assists and 11 digs and Rachel Moran (Cypress, Texas) had 16 assists and 11 digs.

The trio of Alexus Horton (Austin, Texas), Jessica King (Los Angeles, Calif.) and Amanda Soper (Simi Valley, Calif.) led Newberry with nine kills each, while King had seven blocks.

"It's always great to win on the road," said Newberry head coach Todd Hay after his squad's sixth five-set win in conference play this year. "I'm very proud of the kids for hanging in there and getting a total team effort. We just had to quit making hitting errors and we got to that point late in the fourth set. Our servers did a good job keeping the out of system. I don't think either team was really able to get into offensive rhythm on serve receive."

Tusculum was on fire in the first set with a .312 hitting rate and a mid-set run put the hosts up 14-6. Newberry fought back to cut the lead to one point by 18-17 and tied the set at 22-all. TC came out of a timeout and put away three straight kills to take the opener. King had three kills for the Wolves, who hit only .105 in the set.

Newberry blew the second set open, scoring 11 of 12 points to go up 17-6. Tusculum could not get back to within five points before Newberry claimed the set. The Wolves hit only .075, but had 29 digs in the set to hold Tusculum to .000. Logan Hayward (Sylvania, Ohio), Horton and Soper each had two kills in the set, while Stokes had 10 digs.

Tusculum took the third set, thanks to six kills in the frame by Megan Hasse and a five-point surge that broke an 18-all tie. Hayward and Soper had three kills in the set, but the Wolves were on the ropes.

The Pioneers took the first four points of the fourth set and led deep until Newberry grabbed the tie at 19-all and pushed to a 21-19 lead. Newberry would have set point three times before Parrish's kill made it 27-25 and pushed the match to the fifth set. Newberry had a stunning 43 digs in the set, with Parrish and Stokes both earning 14 digs. Horton had three kills. TC's Caitlyn Dean had 16 digs.

Newberry scored the first five points of the deciding set, but Tusculum battled back to tie the set at 10-all and then take an 11-10 lead. From a 12-all tie, the Wolves scored three of the next four points and the seventh kill of the night from Holly Brisson (Lumberton, N.C.) gave the Wolves a fantastic road win.