Six sets into Big Ten play, Rutgers had not won one. No. 1 Nebraska swept the Scarlet Knights on a Friday, Iowa swept them the next night, and the team that closed the non-conference slate at 9-3 arrived in Columbus at 9-5.
They left with a sweep of their own. Rutgers beat Ohio State 25-21, 25-14, 25-23 on Thursday night at the Covelli Center in front of 1,908, for its first conference win of the season and its second straight sweep of the Buckeyes in that building.
Rutgers hit .350 with 48 kills and
12 attack errors on 103 swings. Ohio State hit .179 with 37 kills and 18 errors on 106. The Scarlet Knights out-blocked the Buckeyes 6-3, out-aced them 3-2, out-dug them 43-37 and sided out at 62.7 percent to Ohio State’s 48.6.
Less than two weeks after missing 17 serves and losing to Penn by a single point, Rutgers missed six.
Nothing else had to be perfect.
Down 3-7 in the First, Up 10-2 in the Second
Rutgers led 3-1 on two Skylar George kills off Brooke Baldwin sets, and then Mia Stahler came off the Ohio State bench and served five straight Buckeye points, two of them on consecutive attack errors by Natalie Robinson and George.
Lily Bolen and Malia Romes came on, and Bolen served Rutgers level at 7-7 with a Romes kill off her own set, a Romes and Robinson stuff of Kalli Jioshvili Ravva and an ace on Stahler, the same player who had just served the run. Robinson and Romes then stuffed Naomy Govou for 9-8, Rutgers’ first lead since 3-2.
From 11-11, Romes set Addison Wiemann for a kill and Rutgers took seven of the next eight, three of them on Baldwin’s serve and three on Imani Howell kills, for an 18-12 lead.
Aspen Maxwell committed two attack errors, Bolen missed a serve, and Aneta Valentova and Govou stuffed Robinson to make it 21-20.
Then Ohio State committed three attack errors in four rallies.
Kenzie Dyrstad served two of those points, and Howell closed it 25-21 off a Bolen set, her fifth kill of the set. Ohio State finished the first with more kills than Rutgers, 15 to 14, and nine attack errors to Rutgers’ five, and that was the set, six ties and two lead changes included.
The second had one tie, at 1-1, and no lead changes. Bolen served four straight from 2-1 to 6-1, George served three straight from 7-2 to 10-2 with a kill of her own in the middle, and Kenzie Dyrstad served three more from 11-4, the last a Howell and Romes stuff of Govou for 14-4.
Rutgers had six kills by 8-2. Ohio State had six in the whole set.
Wiemann’s ace on Kelly McAuley made it 18-6. Rutgers missed three serves between 19-9 and 22-13 and it did not matter in the slightest, and Howell and Maxwell stuffed Govou to end it 25-14. Rutgers hit .452 with eight of its 17 kills off Bolen sets. Ohio State hit .067, a number this team knows a little something about.
Five Straight Points & Skylar George Serves Out the Sweep
Ohio State came out for the third with a new setter in Mia Tuman and new attackers in Navea Gauthier and Jojo Miller, and Bella Humphrey served four straight from 2-2, starting with an ace on Kami Dyrstad, for a 2-6 lead.
Rutgers got within a point five times in the middle of the set and could not get level. Hannah Jones killed seven times in the third, Howell missed a serve at 19-22, and Jones made it 20-23 off an Emily Avshalomov set.
Ohio State was two points from a fourth set.
Romes killed off Bolen for 21-23, and George went to the service line. Gauthier’s attack error made it 22-23. Zharia Harris-Waddy, on the floor since 2-6, killed off Bolen for 23-23, the first tie since 2-2. Ohio State sent Jioshvili Ravva back in, and George aced her on the next serve.
It was Rutgers’ first lead since 2-1.
Romes ended it off Bolen on the next rally. Five straight points, the last four on George’s serve, and Rutgers hit .342 in the set to Ohio State’s .289 with three ties and three lead changes.
Stats Breakdown
Howell was the best player in Scarlet with 13 kills on 19 swings and two errors for .579, four block assists and a match-high 15 points. Romes was right behind her and cleaner, 11 kills on 16 attempts without a single attack error, .688, plus four block assists and 13 points, all of it off the bench.
George added 10 kills on 23 swings at .348 with an ace for 11 points, and Wiemann, who came on in all three sets, had six kills on 17 attempts at .235 with an ace of her own. Harris-Waddy went two-for-three without an error in the third. Maxwell and Robinson each finished with three kills, three errors and two block assists. Karis Willow did not appear in the box score.
The setting split was Bolen 19, Baldwin 17 and Kenzie Dyrstad six. Bolen’s ace left her five short of 100 for her career, and Kenzie Dyrstad led the match with 14 digs. Rutgers served three aces against six service errors, Bolen and Howell missing two apiece, and its two reception errors belonged to Kami Dyrstad and the team.
Ohio State got 11 kills from Govou on a match-high 35 swings with seven errors, .114, and 10 from Jones at .360. Past those two and Schoonover’s .500 on 10 swings, Jioshvili Ravva hit minus-.111 and Gauthier minus-.333. Nakanelua had 16 assists, Tuman 10 in the third alone, and Avshalomov dug 12.
What Worked (and One Thing That Didn’t)
Malia Romes, first.
The freshman middle from Kalida, Ohio, played in her home state and did not commit an attack error in three sets. She was in on three of Rutgers’ four first-set blocks, set the kill that started the run that won the first, and put away the last ball of the match.
Skylar George, too. Opponents have hunted her in serve receive all season, and two of the three balls Penn aced landed on her. Ohio State aced Rutgers twice and found her neither time. She hit .348 after hitting .000 on 33 swings against Penn, and she served the match out.
Then there were the pins.
Maxwell and Robinson combined for six kills and six attack errors on 23 swings, three of those errors in the stretch where an 18-12 first-set lead became 21-20. Maxwell hit .625 against Penn and .000 here. Rutgers swept because Howell and Romes hit a combined .629, and a sweep built on two players depends on those two showing up again on Sunday.
Rutgers is 10-5 and 1-2 in the Big Ten and comes home to Jersey Mike’s Arena for No. 15 Indiana on Sunday at 2 p.m. on Homecoming Weekend, with No. 20 Minnesota and UCLA following next Friday and Saturday.
Four of the next five opponents are ranked.
Against Penn, Rutgers was better at everything except the serve and lost. In Columbus the serve stayed out of the way, and the rest was enough.
