The Bearcats Woman’s Volleyball Team came in looking to complete the series sweep over the USF Bulls after an intense come from behind victory in 5 sets to take Game 1. The Bearcats knew this would be a even more intense matchup than the first match of the series as that was a thriller. The Bearcats starters today consisted of Maria Mallom, Shannon Williams, Madison Waters, Armania Heckenmueller, Hannah Bolinger, Adria Oliver and libero Payton Frederick.
Set 1- The Bearcats started off with a service error from Junior Armania Heckenmuller to give the Bulls some early momentum as they looked to bounce back after their loss yesterday. The Bulls found their momentum early as they were finding their spots in the Bearcats defense to jump out early 13-9 in Set 1. The Bulls went on a 4-0 run to push the lead to this point to go up 6 over the Bearcats before head coach Molly Alvey calls a timeout to stop the Bulls run. The Bulls were looking to not have a repeat of events after they had a big 7 point lead in Set 1 erased after the Bearcats found their momentum and started to find their shots in the Bulls defense. The Bearcats stopped the run after a big Shannon Williams kill to stop the Bulls 5-0 run as they were looking to find a run of their own. The Bearcats came back to 16-13 after the Williams kill which was followed up by a service ace from libero Payton Frederick. The Bearcats found their grove after another Shannon Williams kill, followed by a Hannah Bolinger kill then a service ace from Ashley Kozer to bring this set to 17-16. The Bearcats started to utilize their middle blockers late in the set to overcome a 16-10 deficit to make Set 1 more energetic as they looked to complete the comeback again as they did multiple times in Game 1 of the series. The Bearcats started to utilize their Middles late in the set and that started to free up the outsides to give the bearcats momentum to make a late run to overcome the early adversity. The first set was neck and neck as the bearcats were trading points with the Bulls back and forth until a team made the first mistake as the game was tied 25-25, before Maria Mallon got a cross court kill to set the Bearcats up 26-25. Mallon’s kill there put a lot of pressure on the Bulls as they knew they had to get a kill or anything to flip the momentum. The Bulls just couldnt get it done as Mykayla Washington had an attack error to seal the come from behind victory 27-25 for the Bearcats.
Set 2- This set was all the Bulls as they found their momentum early and never looked back as they jumped out to a quick 11-4 lead over the Bearcats after a 6-4 lead that quickly turned into a 11-4 deficit really quick when they went on a 6-0 run in that time span and the Bearcats found themselves in a big hole very early and knew they’d have to find a way to create a run of theirs or this set will get out of hand quickly and even the set out. The Bulls ripped out another 5-0 run which was their second of the match and the Bearcats were in a very big hole and ended up losing Set 2, 25-11. The Bearcats knew that they’d need to forget about Set 2 very quickly in order to come back and finish this match on a strong note.
Set 3- Set 3 was a complete 180 from Set 2 as the Bearcats flipped the switch and forgot about Set 2 as they went back and forth as they went point for point for the first 20 points of the set to tie things up 10-10. The Bulls found their grove as they went on a 4-0 run to jump ahead 14-10 over the Bearcats. The Bearcats tried to overcome the Bulls early run as they cut the deficit to 1 when they found momentum that are started when the game was 24-20 and Madison Waters put down a big kill to give the Bearcats momentum to create a run. The Waters kill was followed up with a Adria Oliver kill, Then a statement block by Sarah Norcom and Adria Oliver and just like that this game was 24-23 before USF got a kill from Marta Cvitkovic to give the Bulls a 2 set to 1 lead over the Bearcats as they won 25-23.
