Villanova volleyball had a mixed week, rebounding from a 3-2 road loss (25-18, 25-23, 19-25, 20-25, 15-11) at St. John’s on Wednesday night with a straight-sets victory (25-23, 25-22, 25-16) over Butler at home on Saturday. The Wildcats are 13-8 overall and 6-4 in Big East play with eight regular season contests remaining.
“I don’t know if we played our smoothest match,” Villanova head coach Josh Steinbach said. “I thought we got better as the match went on. We struggled a little bit in the first set offensively, and then I thought we cleaned it up as the match progressed.”
Vilanova struggled in the opening set, with Butler commanding an 8-3 lead over Villanova. The ‘Cats were able to storm back with a six-point run to take a 10-9 lead. The lead changed hands again, but the ‘Cats were able to pull off set one win in a close 25-23 win.
The second set was tied early, 5-5. Butler was able to take an 8-6 lead over Villanova thanks to impressive play from Butler’s outside hitter, Elise Ward, who ended the night with 12 kills. The ‘Cats were eventually able to take a 16-12 lead.
With the help of outside hitters sophomore Abby Harrell and freshman Cat Young and freshman middle blocker Campbell McKinnon, Villanova extended its lead to 22-16. But Butler capitalized off of a few Villanova errors to get back within one. Butler’s surge back was not strong enough, and Villanova was able to close out set two, 25-22.
The Wildcats never trailed in the final set, pulling away for a 25-16 victory.
“I think [today’s game] went awesome,” senior libero Elizabeth Feczko said. “I think we have had a couple of matches in a row where we haven’t played to our full potential. So today, it felt like everything clicked again, and we were back to getting close to our peak and working together really well as a unit. I am really happy with the result, and getting a sweep at home is huge.”
Earlier in the week, the Wildcats traveled to Queens to take on St. John’s. The Red Storm took the first two sets, 25-18 and 25-23, before the ‘Cats rattled off two set wins, 25-19 and 25-20, in the third and the fourth. The ‘Cats came back from an early 8-3 deficit to win the fourth set.
The ‘Cats claimed a 7-5 lead in the first-to-15 tiebreak set, but St. John’s was able to make a late set surge to take the set and the game, 3-2.
Next week, Villanova will face some tough competition on the road. They will play at Marquette (15-6, 9-1 Big East) on Friday, Nov. 1, and then travel to Omaha, Nebraska, to play No. 6 Creighton (19-1, 10-0 BE) on Sunday, Nov. 3.
“It will take a really clean performance from us [to get a win],” Steinbach said. “We are going to have to play our best matches in order to get a win. That is the goal, and we will worry about one match at a time.”
