DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Alondra Bautista posted 23 kills, 18 digs and two service aces as Bethune-Cookman rallied for a 3-2 (25-21,24-26,23-25,25-16,15-12) victory over North Carolina A&T in a battle for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Southern Division lead Friday night.
 
Rakaya Neely added nine kills and five blocks as the Wildcats (7-8 overall, 4-0 MEAC) took leads of 10-4 and 14-8 in the fifth set en route to their third straight win.
 
North Carolina A&T  (11-10,3-1) scored four unanswered points to make it to 14-12, but Miranda White's kill gave the Wildcats the victory.
 
Setter Phalen Clark (50 assists, 11 digs) had three kills in the fifth set, while freshman Faith Landreneaux had three blocks.
 
The Wildcats were one point away from taking a two-set lead, but the Aggies would score six straight points to even the match, and then won  the third set.

Bethune-Cookman held the Aggies to a negative hitting percentage (-.036) in the fourth set as the Wildcats scored the final seven points.

Bautista, a senior, hit .486 as she posted her second 20-kill match in four matches. Jordan Jefferson added eight kills.

Samara Brown and Courteney Pitt each had 15 kills for the Aggies.
Bethune-Cookman hosts North Carolina Central Sunday at noon.

HEAD COACH BRITTANY WILLIAMS
"We didn't finish, I don't feel like that match needed to go five. Had we finished in that second set, had we stay up, when we were up 16-10, we opened the door for them, we let them get some momentum. We have to learn how when we are up on teams, to shut the door on them. We can't give them any room for hope. Because that not only carries over this match, but the next time we have to go and play them, at the end of the season in their house. So we need to make a statement every single time we step out to the court and finish teams and put them away."
 
On Alondra Bautista: "Bautista has been kicking it up a notch every single time. She is playing like a true senior right now. She had some struggles in the beginning, and she's definitely stepped it up, and she playing well for us defensively, she's had a double-double for her last couple of matches. And that's some leadership I need coming from my seniors."
 
On The Win: "It's huge for us, it's huge, because we want to go in as the number #1 team, that's been our goal from the beginning, put ourselves in a good position in going into the tournament. And you know I think we showed that tonight, that yeah we could have easily kind of rolled over but we stepped up and the people that needed to step up, stepped up for us big time."
 
ALONDRA BAUTISTA
 
" I mean we are here to do the job, we are here to execute and that's what we did tonight. 
 
[On the second and third sets] "I feel like the second set and third set were pretty low, but we picked it up in the fourth and fifth set."
 
NOTES: Bautista's final kill total tied her for eighth on the all-time single-match total list … B-CU now 2-2 in five set matches this season … This was the first five-set match in MEAC Southern Division play in the Williams era … This was Clark's second 50 assist match of the season.