Eight matches in, Rutgers had exactly one night of evidence that it could be one team. Friday was about whether it could be the same team twice.
Thursday was that night. Rutgers swept Stony Brook 25-18, 25-21, 25-15, out-hit the Seawolves .301 to .133, sided out at 60.7 percent and never trailed by more than one against a team riding a three-match winning streak. The last time the Scarlet Knights looked that sure of themselves, they swept Arkansas on Sept. 1 and lost to Vanderbilt in four twenty-four
hours later.
Delaware got the next night.
The Blue Hens came in at 4-2 after beating Rider 28-26, 25-16, 25-10 in the same building on Thursday afternoon. That did not matter. Rutgers beat them 25-19, 24-26, 25-16, 25-21 in [time] in front of 501, and for once the second night mostly looked like the first
Four Straight Aces, Then Seven Service Errors
Karis Willow served Rutgers into the first set and then served it out of the second.
The first set was tied at nine when Willow stepped back to the line, and Rutgers did not give the ball up again until it led 16-9. Four of those six points were aces, all four by Willow, two of them straddling a Delaware timeout and a media timeout. Nothing about the break was subtle: Delaware passed a ball to the floor three times in a row, and Rutgers never had to run its offense to score.
Delaware answered with seven of the next nine to get within 18-16 and force a Rutgers timeout, then stopped scoring. Kenzie Dyrstad aced to make it 21-18, Malia Romes and Natalie Robinson put away swings on either side of it, and Rutgers closed the set 25-19 on a Willow kill off a Dyrstad set. Six aces, no service errors, no reception errors. It was the cleanest set of serving Rutgers has played all season
The second set was the opposite, and it was tied 13 times. Neither team led by more than three. Rutgers was in front 16-12 and had the set where it wanted it, and then it served the match back to Delaware: Skylar George, Brooke Baldwin, Willow, Imani Howell and Lily Bolen all missed serves as Delaware climbed from 12 to 26, five free points in a 14-point stretch. Rutgers finished the set with seven service errors and one ace.
Rutgers still had set point.
Romes put away a Bolen set for 24-23, and then Rutgers did not win another rally. Morgan Campbell stuffed Willow to tie it, Romes hit long, and Kennedi Inman and Campbell blocked Willow again to end it 26-24. Three straight points, two of them blocks on the same hitter, one night after Rutgers beat Stony Brook without ever trailing by more than one.
Delaware Stopped Hitting, and Rutgers Capitalizes
The third set was tied six times and Delaware led five of the first ten rallies. Then the Blue Hens stopped putting the ball in the court.
Delaware hit minus .075 in the third, with nine kills against 12 attack errors on 40 swings, and Rutgers won 16 of the last 22 points without hitting the ball especially well itself. From 10-9 down, the Scarlet Knights took four straight, the last of them a Skylar George ace off Thalia Yancey that forced a Delaware timeout. Rutgers led 17-13 after three more, and when Karis Willow aced Jayda Gray to make it 19-14, Delaware called its second timeout of the set having scored four points in eleven rallies. Rutgers took the set 25-16 while hitting .111. It out-blocked Delaware 4-2 in the frame and did not need much else.
The fourth was the first set all night that looked like Thursday.
Rutgers never trailed. Brooke Baldwin served the opening two points, Willow and Imani Howell put them away, and Rutgers led 7-2 before Delaware settled. Emily Zgonc and Kennedi Inman both aced in the middle of the set to get the Blue Hens within 13-12 and force a Rutgers timeout, and that was as close as it got. Rutgers answered with two of the next three, held Delaware at arm’s length through the twenties, and Baldwin aced Yancey for a 21-18 lead and another Delaware timeout.
Delaware got to 23-21. Yancey hit long twice in a row to end it.
Rutgers hit .412 in the fourth set, 18 kills, four errors, 34 attempts, which is the best set it has played this season by a distance. Baldwin and Lily Bolen combined for 43 assists on the night, and six different Scarlet Knights had at least five kills.
Stats Breakdown
Willow led everyone with 16.5 points on 11 kills, five aces and a block, hitting .241 on 29 swings. Malia Romes matched her with 11 kills and Skylar George had 10, though both hit under .140, Romes at .133 on 30 attempts, George at .111 on 36. Natalie Robinson was the efficient one: eight kills, one error, 20 attempts, .350, plus six total blocks. Howell added eight kills on 16 swings and matched Robinson’s six blocks. Aspen Maxwell had five.
Kenzie Dyrstad had 15 digs and Kaila Kalama-Bajet 13. Baldwin finished with 23 assists, Bolen 20.
For Delaware, Anna Logan Gillens led with 12 kills but hit .114 on 35 attempts against eight errors. Asia Murray was the most efficient Blue Hen with 10 kills at .231. Inman ran the offense for 32 assists. Yancey took 36 swings for nine kills and 10 total errors, most of anyone on the floor.
The whole match turned on the error column. Delaware committed 31 attack errors to Rutgers’ 25, and 12 of those came in the third set alone.
What Worked (And One Thing That Didn’t)
Serve receive held. Two reception errors in four sets against a team that had just swept Rider. That is the number that has moved Rutgers’ results all season, and Friday it stayed still for the second straight night.
The block showed up. Thirteen total blocks, with Robinson and Howell at six apiece and Maxwell at five. Rutgers has now out-blocked back-to-back opponents.
Willow served a set away from Delaware. Four consecutive aces in the first set turned a 9-9 game into 16-9, and she finished with five for the match. Ten team aces to two is not a margin that requires explanation.
The fourth set was the ceiling. Eighteen kills, four errors, .412. Six hitters with five or more kills. Rutgers has not put a set together like that since Arkansas.
What didn’t work is the same thing that didn’t work Tuesday. Rutgers served seven balls out of bounds in the second set, five of them in a 14-point stretch that let Delaware climb from 12 back to even. It had set point at 24-23 and lost three straight, two of them blocks on Willow — the second time in four days it has dropped a set it led late. And three of the four sets came in under .180; the third was won on Delaware’s errors, not Rutgers’ offense.
Nine service errors against 10 aces is a trade Rutgers will take. Nine service errors and a lost set is the version of it that costs something.
Rutgers is 6-2 and closes its four-match homestand against Rider tomorrow night at Jersey Mike’s Arena. None of this week’s opponents was ever going to decide what this team is. The serve and serve receive were going to decide that, and the only way to know whether Thursday was a fix or just a good night was to see whether it survived the next one. It did. Rutgers held still two nights in a row, which is exactly what it could not do in Nashville.
