TALLADEGA, Ala. – The Talladega College women's volleyball team opened up the home part of its season at the Talladega College Tournament today. The Tornadoes picked up two wins to start the tournament off at 2-0. Talladega downed Life University 3-0 while defeating New College of Florida 3-1 to improve to 3-3 on the season.

Talladega is back in action tomorrow at noon when it faces Point University and then later in the day will take on Truett McConnell University.

Match 1: Talladega 3, Life 0 (25-19, 25-21, 25-19)
Talladega and Life (5-2) were close in all three sets with the difference being no more than six points, which happened twice in set one and set three. While set two was decided by four points. Talladega handed Life its second loss of the season.

Talladega out-hit Life as a team .349 to .128 for the match. The Tornadoes registered 39 kills to Life's 29.

Franchesca Rivas and Josphine Gates each finished with eight kills for Talladega while Rivas tallied one of the team's six aces. Re'na Ashley and Zariah Messick finished with a combined 14 kills.

Giovana Costarelli led the team with 17 assists and an ace while tallying four digs. Teammate Briyith Echeverri registered team-highs with 11 digs and two aces.

Match 2: Talladega 3, New College of Florida 1 (25-14, 25-17, 22-25, 25-14)
Talladega for the match finished with 55 kills while only allowing 32 to NCF (1-1). As a team, the Tornadoes hit .294 with a high of .417 in set two.

The Tornadoes for the second straight match today registered six aces.

Talladega's Rivas finished with eight kills in the first match tallied a team-high 15 kills against NCF. She added six digs in the process.

Teammates Kortni Johnson, Marcelly Perez, and Gates all registered nine kills.

Nuria Santos paced all the Tornadoes with 26 assists while Costarelli tallied with 21 assists of her own.

Echeverri paced all Talladega players with 19 digs while Stella Lukaszuk finished with 11 digs of her own.