LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bellarmine volleyball opened its weekend with a clean sweep victory, taking down West Georgia 25-19, 25-12, 25-20 on Friday night in Knights Hall for its first home Atlantic Sun Conference victory.
The Knights have now won back-to-back ASUN matches and improve to 8-9 on the year and 2-3 in ASUN play. Bellarmine's eight wins surpass their season total from a year ago with 11 matches left on the schedule. West Georgia remains winless in conference action, moving to 2-16, 0-5.
Junior
Erika Smith and redshirt freshman
Mya White led the Knights' offense on the night, turning in 12 kills each. Smith committed just two errors in 23 swings for a blistering .435 hitting percentage. White was efficient in her own right with a .276 clip while adding six digs, two aces and an assist. Junior Natalie Band tallied nine eliminations while contributing a career-high five aces with eight digs and an assist. Senior
Kylie Van Hoy dished out 32 assists with seven kills, six digs and a block. Defensively, freshman
Payton Parsons recorded a match-high 16 digs along with five assists and an ace.
As a team, Bellarmine turned in a season-best .310 hitting percentage, topping its previous high by 22 points (.288 vs Mercyhurst, 9/19). The Knights also won the kill battle 49-28 and the ace battle 10-4.
Set 1
Bellarmine jumped out to an early 6-2 lead in the matches' opening frame. From there, West Georgia finally settled in and rallied for seven straight points to overtake BU with a 9-6 lead and force a Knights timeout. Out of the break, Bellarmine looked refocused and used a four-point run thanks to two kills each from Smith and White to retake the lead at 10-9. The Knights continued to build after that, going up 16-13 as the Wolves called their first timeout. BU benefited from the break however, scoring three straight points to extend its lead to 19-13 to force West Georgia to use its final timeout. Bland tallied a kill immediately out of the break to cap off the 4-0 run before UWG got back on the board again with two points of its own. Freshman
Lillie Meinhart tallied her sixth kill of the first set to reignite the Knights at 21-15, leading to the eventual 25-19 first set win.
Set 2
Just as they did in the first, the Knights got off to a quick start with a 6-2 lead. West Georgia brought things back in check, getting within three but called a timeout as Bellarmine scored to make it 11-7. The Knights poured it on out of the break, turning in three service aces to run up a seven-point lead at 16-9 to force West Georgia to use its second timeout. Once again, it was all Bellarmine out of the break as the Knights stout defense allowed just three more UWG points en route to a 25-12 set two victory, capped off by a 5-0 run featuring three kills from Van Hoy.
Set 3
West Georgia found some momentum to start the third, taking an early 7-3 lead. BU regained the serve on another Van Hoy kill to make it 7-4 before Bland went on a tear at the service line, racking up four straight aces to vault the Knights into the lead at 8-7. Smith recorded a kill on Bland's fifth serve to go up 9-7 as UWG called timeout but the run didn't end out of the break before White and Van Hoy tallied a kill each to cap off the 7-0 run by Bellarmine to take an 11-7 lead. BU continued to push the pace, taking a 17-13 lead into the Wolves' final timeout. UWG held tough, staying within four points late, down 21-17 as Bellarmine called a timeout to settle in for the final push. Out of the break, BU worked its way to the finish line for a 25-20 set win and a clean sweep.
Up next, Bellarmine will welcome Queens to Knights Hall on Saturday, October 11 at 4 pm E.T.
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