Kansas Stars Shine with USA Collegiate National Team

NEW ORLEANS – All-Big 12 Jayhawks Tiana Dockery and Kelsie Payne led their squad to a championship finish to conclude the week at the U.S. Collegiate National Team (CNT) Program at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.
 
The CNT program consisted of 35 athletes, who began training on June 21 in New Orleans and were split into three teams – CNT Blue, Red and White for a round-robin tournament held concurrently with the USA Volleyball Girls’ Junior National Championships to connect current collegiate stars with young athletes dreaming to be in the same position in the future. Along with Dockery and Payne, Kansas setter Ainise Havili also made the CNT roster, playing for CNT White.
 
In the first-place match on June 29, the CNT Blue Team defeated CNT Red 25-21, 25-20, 19-25, 25-23. Dockery led the blue side with 12 kills, followed by Payne’s 10. In fact, CNT Blue went undefeated in its three matches in the tournament. Earlier this week CNT Blue won both its round robin matches with a 3-2 win over CNT White on June 27 and 3-1 win over CNT Red on June 26.
 
Dockery led the team in all three matches, chalking up 12, 14 and 12 kills, respectively. Payne, named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team last fall, tallied 30 total kills for the tournament. Havili, a 2014 Honorable Mention All-American, recorded kills in each of her outings while running the floor from the setter position.
 
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