The Bearcats volleyball team traveled to South Bend this weekend where they took place in the Notre Dame Tournament, they went 2-1 over the weekend. The Bearcats fell to Milwaukee in the first match of the weekend 3 sets to 1, but that didn’t stop the Bearcats from going on a big run to come back and win their next two matches.
The Bearcats first win of the weekend came against Notre Dame, a statement win for the Bearcats as the Irish were receiving votes in the NCAA Top 25 prior to that match. This match was one every volleyball fan thoroughly enjoys, a high level of intensity filled the arena as set 1 got underway. The Bearcats were hanging tight with the Notre Dame before the Irish went on a 4-0 run to take a big 24-19 lead over the Bearcats. The Bearcats on the other hand, they had different plans. The Bearcats rallied back to tie the match up at 24, causing a Top 25 team to get rattled early in the match. The Bearcats went back and forth and in those situations it comes down to who isnt going to make any errors and put balls away and that was the Bearcats. The energy filled the arena and the Bearcats knew they had to find a way to put this one away and use that as a statement factor throughout the match. The set all tied up at 32, trading point for point the Bearcats finally said enough is enough lets end this, The Bearcats got a massive kills from Shannon Williams followed by an even bigger play a service ace from Payton Frederick to end the set giving the Bearcats an early 1 set advantage after a 34-32 thriller.
The Irish didn’t go down without a fight as they rallied back to tie the match up 1-1 going into set 3 before the Bearcats jumped on the gas and wanted to show the Irish what they can do. The Bearcats jumped out and dominated set 3 as they beat the Irish 25-14. The Irish had a 12-10 lead over the Bearcats before they held the Irish to 2 points after scoring 15 of their own to end the match. That last stretch of the 3rd set the Bearcats had three massive momentum changing runs in the match where they just sucked the energy right out of the Irish after going on two 4 point runs and a 7 point run the Bearcats started to sense they could pull off a statement win, a big one early in the season. The Bearcats were clicking on all cylinders and were putting balls away. The Irish fell in set 4 as the Bearcats pulled off a 25-21 victory to seal the 3-1 victory.
Some takeaways from the game was the Bearcats absolutely dominates the serving aspect of the match as they had seven service aces compared to Notre Dame’s one. That’s a huge factor as the Bearcats were causing all sorts of trouble for the Irish, causing the Irish to get out of system early and try to figure out how to stop the Bearcats momentum. This plays a huge factor in the sport of volleyball because only allowing one serving ace while having seven of their own means the Bearcats had tremendous defense in the serve receive category setting up setter Emme Madden for an easy play to get the team in position for the offense to dominate. Another takeaway for the Bearcats was their defense really stood out and played well as the team had 79 digs compared to the Irish’s 50. Maria Mallon accommodated for 25 of those digs, nearly 1/3rd of the teams digs in that match, That’s an incredible stat and shows how talented the senior outside hitter is for the Bearcats.
