18 hours after taking down the host school, Rutgers closed the Bellarmine Classic against Evansville on Saturday afternoon, winning 25-22, 18-25, 25-22, 25-14 over Evansville at Knights Hall.
They won it without hitting better than the team across the net. Evansville finished at .265 to Rutgers’ .254 and had the match’s leading attacker in Lyla Fisher, 15 kills on 33 swings. Rutgers had 11 aces to three, and six of them came off Fisher, who was charged with six reception errors. Natalie Robinson put
down 14 kills with one error on 25 attempts, .520 for the afternoon and 16.5 points, both match highs.
The fourth set was 25-14. Rutgers hit .545 in it. Evansville hit .083.
Seven Kills, Then Nine Errors
The first set was bad volleyball from both benches and Rutgers won it anyway. The Scarlet Knights trailed 5-8 before Wren Jones put three consecutive swings away, one wide and two into an Aspen Maxwell block, and a one-point deficit became a 12-10 lead. Neither team broke .175.
It was 19-19 when Robinson took it over. Karis Willow’s kill made it 20-19, then Robinson put down three straight for 23-19 through two Evansville timeouts. She finished the set with seven of Rutgers’ 14 kills. Evansville got to 23-21 and 24-22, and Fisher ended it with a swing into the antenna. 25-22.
The second was the giveback, and it was self-inflicted. Rutgers led 5-1 behind aces from Zharia Harris-Waddy and Lily Bolen, then stopped putting the ball in the court. Nine attack errors on 39 swings, .103 for the set, no blocks. Skylar George accounted for four of the errors. Evansville, meanwhile, made one. They had one attack error on 30 attempts, .400, the best set either team played all afternoon. Fisher had five kills in it. Lexi Owen’s ace made it 24-18 and Willow went into the Carsyn Kelley–Makenzie Miller block to end it.
Two Aces on Fisher, and the Match Turned
Rutgers fell behind 4-8 in the third and never trailed by more than four again. Willow’s kill made it 5-8 and Harris-Waddy went back and served two consecutive aces, both landing on Fisher, and it was 7-8. Willow’s own ace tied it at 11. Kenzie Dyrstad served another at 22-18, Fisher again, and Maxwell closed the set with a kill off Brooke Baldwin. Five Rutgers aces in the set, none for Evansville.
Evansville still hit .353 in the third and lost it.
The fourth ended the argument. Tied 6-6, Rutgers scored seven of the next eight, three of those points on aces with Bolen on Brooke Herdes, Willow on Fisher, Baldwin on Fisher. It was 16-9 after Baldwin’s, and Evansville never got closer than six the rest of the way. Rutgers made one attack error in the entire set, a Harris-Waddy swing at 13-9. Malia Romes hit back-to-back for 24-13 and Fisher’s service error finished it.
Stats Breakdown
Rutgers scored 93 points to 83 on 130 attacks to 117, and won a match in which it was out-hit, out-blocked 7.0 to 6.0 and outdone by the opposing setter, Kelley finishing with 36 assists. The serve is the whole difference with 11 aces to three.
Robinson led at .520 with 14 kills, one error and 2.5 blocks. Harris-Waddy was next at .467, nine kills and two errors on 15 swings, plus three aces and 13 points. Willow had 10 kills, three aces and 13.5 points against four attack errors and four service errors. Romes had 10 kills on 27 swings. Avery Jesewitz came off the bench for six kills and one error on 12 attempts across two sets. Baldwin and Bolen split the sets almost evenly, 24 assists and 23. Dyrstad had 15 digs.
The error split tells the rest. Rutgers made 17 attack errors in the first two sets and five in the last two.
Evansville got 15 kills from Fisher and nine from Ryan Scheu at .500, and got almost nothing else. Jones went eight kills and five errors on 29 swings, .103. Kendall Agler dug 16 balls. Miller had three blocks.
What Worked (and One Thing That Didn’t)
Six of Rutgers’ 11 aces landed on Lyla Fisher, the same player who led Evansville in kills and digs. She was run off the court from the service line in the third and fourth sets while producing at the net, and the Purple Aces had no way to hide her. Twenty-four aces in two matches this weekend, and both wins were built on it.
What didn’t work was the left side in the first half of the match. George finished with one kill and six errors on 15 swings, -.333, and was out of the lineup after the second set. Maxwell went 5-for-12 with four errors. Rutgers’ first two sets produced a .137 clip on 74 swings, and the only reason the match wasn’t gone is that Robinson was closing the first one by herself.
Rutgers leaves Louisville 2-1 and heads to Nashville for the Big Ten/SEC Challenge, Arkansas and Vanderbilt on Sept. 1 and Sept. 2 before their first home game against LIU. Caitlin Schweihofer’s seventh Rutgers team served for 24 aces in two matches and won both of them on the strength of it. Neither SEC team will pass the way Bellarmine and Evansville did. The next thing to learn about this team is what it looks like when the ace stops coming.
