Rutgers had saved the day twice in a row. On Halloween in Evanston, the Scarlet Knights saved three match points and beat Northwestern in five. On Thursday, they were out-hit, out-killed and outscored by Michigan and beat the Wolverines in five anyway.
Saturday afternoon was Superhero Day at Jersey Mike’s Arena, and nobody swooped in.
The Scarlet Knights lost 23-25, 16-25, 13-25 to USC, a Trojans team finishing an East Coast swing that started at Maryland on Thursday. Rutgers scored 23 points in the
first set. It scored 29 in the second and third combined, six more than it managed in the first alone.
USC hit .351 with 42 kills and nine attack errors on 94 swings. Rutgers hit .133 with 33 kills and 19 errors on 105. USC out-blocked Rutgers 12-4, out-aced it 6-1, out-dug it 41-37 and sided out at 79.2 percent to Rutgers’ 55.4. Across three sets USC scored 75 points and Rutgers scored 52.
Here is the strange part. Rutgers’ attack barely changed from set to set, with 13 kills and a .125 hitting line in the first, then 10 kills at .138 and 10 more at .139. What changed was USC. The Trojans gave Rutgers eight points on errors in the first set, five of them on missed serves, then four in the second and two in the third.
Rutgers stayed close for exactly as long as USC kept coming to its rescue.
Rutgers Leads Late in the First, Then Loses Their Powers After 7-6 in the Second
The first set looked like the team that had spent the week saving the day. Malia Romes killed twice off Lily Bolen sets in the first three rallies, and Zharia Harris-Waddy killed on consecutive rallies off Brooke Baldwin sets to turn 3-4 into 5-4. Skylar George made it 6-4 with Jenna DeLaMater serving.
USC kept handing back whatever they took. Layli Ostovar and Paisley Douglas each missed a serve, Abigail Mullen hit an attack error, and Romes found the floor off Bolen for an 11-8 lead. Avery Jesewitz made it 13-10 off Baldwin.
Then the villains showed up, and they played in the middle. Milly McGee stuffed George solo at 13-12, and Mia Tvrdy tied it at 13, the first of four ties in seven rallies. George’s kill off a Kenzie Dyrstad set gave Rutgers a 15-14 lead at the media timeout, George’s attack error tied it, and Romes put Rutgers back in front at 16-15.
That was the last lead Rutgers held in the set.
Jesewitz hit an attack error to tie it at 16, Leah Ford stuffed Natalie Robinson solo, and Ford and London Wijay stuffed Romes for 16-18. Rutgers took a timeout and kept clawing back to within one, looking for one more rescue. Baldwin aced Taylor Deckert at 19-20 to force a USC timeout, and after Tvrdy and McGee stuffed Mira McCool on the first rally after she checked in, Karis Willow and McCool stuffed Wijay to make it 21-22. Jesewitz served long. George killed off Baldwin at 22-23, Adonia Faumuina killed for set point, and Faumuina’s own attack error made it 23-24 before Mullen ended it off McGee.
Eight ties, three lead changes and 13 kills apiece. USC hit .300 to Rutgers’ .125 and stuffed five Rutgers swings to one, and that was the margin of a two-point set.
The second started even better. Jesewitz killed twice off Kenzie Dyrstad sets on Bolen’s serve for a 2-0 lead, a Willow kill and a Wijay attack error made it 4-1, and after Tvrdy and Ford pulled USC level, Willow put on the cape. She killed off Bolen at 5-4, again at 6-4 and again at 7-6, four kills in the first 13 rallies of the set.
Then Willow went back to serve and missed, tying it at 7.
Rutgers never led again.
Faumuina killed for USC’s first lead of the set, Romes hit an attack error, and Rutgers called timeout down 7-9. A bad set from Bolen made it 9-12, Faumuina and Wijay killed back to back for 10-14, and USC led 15-11 at the media timeout. Out of it, Wijay and Tvrdy stuffed Willow and Quinn Loper aced Rutgers for 11-17. George’s missed serve and a Jesewitz attack error took it to 15-22, Ford killed for set point and then stuffed Addison Wiemann with Mullen to end it, three rallies after Wiemann checked in. Three ties, one lead change, and USC hit .375. From 7-7 on, the Trojans outscored Rutgers 18-9.
The third was decided before the media timeout. Faumuina killed twice, Willow hit an attack error and Loper aced George for 2-6. Mullen then went to the service line at 3-7 and stayed for four straight points, two of them on kills by McGee, USC’s setter, and one on an ace on George. Schweihofer called timeout and sent in reinforcements with Alleigh Dutton, McCool and Baldwin in the middle of it, and the run ended at 3-11.
USC led 15-6 at the media timeout. McGee aced Kenzie Dyrstad out of it, Tvrdy stuffed Robinson solo, and Wijay aced DeLaMater for 10-22. Ford and McGee stuffed George for match point at 11-24, and Rutgers saved two, on a Faumuina attack error and Robinson’s kill off Bolen.
George went back to serve at 13-24.
It did not land in.
One tie, no lead changes. USC hit .375 with four aces in the set, and Rutgers hit .139 with zero.
Stats Breakdown
Malia Romes has been the team’s “Wonder Woman” all season, and even on an afternoon when nobody in Scarlet could hit, she led everyone with eight kills on 21 swings and four attack errors, .190, with two block assists for nine points. She scored in all three sets. Willow had six kills and three errors on 20 swings for .150, and Jesewitz had six kills and three errors on 18 for .167. Harris-Waddy went three kills on five swings with no errors, .600, and did not play after the first set. Robinson finished with two kills and two errors on seven swings. Aspen Maxwell and Imani Howell again did not appear.
George took a match-high 30 swings and finished with seven kills and five attack errors, .067. She was stuffed four times, missed three serves and was aced twice, and her 10 total errors were the most of anyone on the floor.
The setting split was Bolen 17 and Baldwin eight, with Kenzie Dyrstad adding three. Kenzie Dyrstad led Rutgers with 11 digs, and USC out-dug Rutgers 41-37. Rutgers won 20.8 percent of the points it served, and for once the service-error column went its way, seven to USC’s nine. It bought nothing, because USC aced Rutgers six times and Baldwin’s ace in the first set was Rutgers’ only one.
Tvrdy was the archvillain of the afternoon, with 11 kills on 15 swings, no attack errors, .733 and six blocks for a match-high 14.5 points. Ford was her sidekick with six kills on 14 swings without an error and five blocks. Between them, USC’s two middles had 17 kills, no attack errors, 29 swings and a hand in 11 of USC’s 12 blocks. McGee was the mastermind with 30 assists, two kills, an ace and four blocks, and Loper aced Rutgers three times off the bench. The Trojans’ pins were far more hittable, with Wijay at .148 with four errors on 27 swings and Faumuina at .211 with four errors on 19, and it did not matter, because Deckert dug 14 balls and the middles never missed.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
The net, first and most obviously.
Every superhero has kryptonite, and Saturday it was a pair of USC middles. Tvrdy and Ford were in on 11 of 12 USC blocks, including the two straight stuffs at 16-16 in the first that flipped the only competitive set of the afternoon. George was stuffed four times, Romes and Robinson twice each, and Rutgers answered with four blocks of its own.
Serve receive, again. USC found the weak spot early and kept aiming at it, with six aces, two of them on George, both in the third, one each on Kenzie Dyrstad and DeLaMater and the other two charged to the team. Michigan never got a serve past George on Thursday. USC got two in the first 13 rallies of the third. Rutgers sided out at 55.4 percent, and a team that cannot side out cannot get to the service line to do anything else.
Karis Willow’s powers came and went again. Four kills in the first 13 rallies of the second set, then a missed serve at 7-6 that tied it and opened the door to a lead USC never gave back, then one kill and three attack errors the rest of the match. It is the same pattern that has followed her all season, compressed into one afternoon.
The one thing that did work was Harris-Waddy, for as long as she was out there. She hit .600 in the first set, killed on consecutive rallies to give Rutgers its 5-4 lead, and was the only Rutgers hitter with more than one swing who finished without an attack error. She did not return for the second or third, and Rutgers hit .138 across them.
Rutgers is 12-14 and 3-11 in the Big Ten and stays at Jersey Mike’s Arena for Wisconsin on Thursday at 6 p.m., then closes the home schedule against Maryland on Friday at the College Avenue Gym before finishing the regular season at Penn State.
Three matches remain, and the Big Ten Tournament takes 15 of the conference’s 18 teams.
Rutgers spent the last week winning by surviving. On Superhero Day it needed USC’s help to stay close for one set, and once the help stopped, so did Rutgers.
