When every game for the past two weeks has been an adventure, it’s nice to have a laugher.
The Washington University volleyball team received that kind of blessing Tuesday night as they swept Greenville College in another strong defensive performance.
Playing on the road at Greenville, the No. 15 Bears held the Panthers to a .048 hitting percentage, the defense’s best mark since the opening tournament of the season. While the Greenville offense was held to nearly as many errors (22) as kills (27), the Bears’ corresponding unit still managed to swing their fourth highest percentage (.255) of the season even with senior Rexi Sheredy still limited to back-line duties. All this combined for an uneventful 25-17, 25-21, 25-20 victory for the Bears.
It wasn’t the kind of game the Red and Green had become accustomed to recently. In the past two weeks, the No. 15 Bears lost 3-0 in consecutive matches for the first time in 19 years, lost in four sets to an unranked opponent and pulled out two five-set victories against top-five opponents in two days. But against Greenville, there were no swings of momentum, no fifth-set standoffs, no humbling sweeps. Instead, it was a regular, boring three-set win.
The tensest moment came early in the third set. With the Bears cruising up 5-1, the Panthers took advantage of four Wash. U. errors and two service aces to take a 6-10 lead. But a kill by sophomore middle hitter Julianne Malek stopped the bleeding, and the Bears took advantage of four Greenville errors and three kills by senior middle Caroline Dupont to even the score at 14-all. After that, the Bears took over. A rare kill from Sheredy closed out the match.
Offensively, sophomore outside hitter/right-side hitter Ifeoma Ufondu and Dupont paced the Bears. Ufondu racked up a game-high 12 kills on an efficient 24 attempts. The performance marks her fourth straight game of double-digit kills. After tallying just 41 kills in her freshman season, Ufondu has become a centerpiece of the Bears’ offense in recent weeks. She lead the team in total attempts against No. 5 Juniata College and No. 22 Elmhurst College this past weekend and ranks second on the team with 2.37 kills per set—just a tick behind Dupont at 2.42.
Against Greenville, Dupont backed up Ufondu’s numbers with nine kills and three errors on 20 attempts. Earlier that day, Dupont was honored as the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Division III National Player of the Week. Against a Murderers’ Row lineup of Juniata, Elmhurst, Heidelberg University and No. 1 California Lutheran University, Dupont had tallied 48 kills and a .368 hitting percentage. Senior right-side hitter Amanda Palucki and Malek chipped in seven and six kills respectively. Freshman setter Chloe Stile played distributor with 34 assists on the night.
On the back end, freshman Zoe Baxter and sophomore Loren Shin led the team with nine and 10 digs, respectively. Up front, Malek added five of the Bears’ 12 block assists to help funnel the ball.
With the victory, the Bears improve to 9-6 and snap Greenville’s nine-game winning streak. The Bears return to the Field House for a rare home game against Webster University on Sunday, and after that, they have a week to rest before conference play begins.