Looking to avenge this morning’s collapse against Purdue Fort Wayne, Rutgers got its first win of 2026 on Friday night, beating host Bellarmine 25-15, 22-25, 25-21, 25-19 at Knights Hall
The Scarlet Knights needed it. Friday morning they took the first two sets from Purdue Fort Wayne, hit .524 in the second and never trailed in it, then lost three straight to fall 25-23, 25-20, 23-25, 24-26, 16-18. They won the kill count 67-61, out-hit the Mastodons .296 to .293 and scored 113 points to 112. They also
held two match points in the fifth and converted neither, the first erased by a service error and the second by an attack error into the block.
Friday night there was no fifth set to lose.
Six Points, Then a Giveback
The first set ended at the service line. Rutgers led 6-3 when Karis Willow, the Penn State transfer, stepped back and did not leave until it was 12-3, six straight points, the last four consecutive aces. Bellarmine never got within six again. Rutgers hit .292 and held the Knights to .087. 25-15.
The second was the one that got away. Mary Herman served four in a row to turn a 3-2 Rutgers lead into a 3-6 hole. Willow’s next run broke a 14-14 tie and built it to 18-14, and Rutgers still led 21-18 with the match in front of it. Then it stopped scoring. Bellarmine took seven of the last eight, closing on back-to-back Aspen Maxwell attack errors, one into the block, one wide. 25-22, Bellarmine. Rutgers hit .129, its only set under .290.
Bolen Flips It, the Block Ends It
Bellarmine opened the third the way it closed the second. Mya White served four straight for a 1-6 lead. Then Lily Bolen went back and the set inverted with six consecutive points, three of them aces, and Rutgers led 8-6. Malia Romes closed the run with a kill off Bolen’s set. The Scarlet Knights hit .346 and took it 25-21 on an Imani Howell kill.
The fourth was even at 13-11 before the block arrived. Kenzie Dyrstad served through a Howell-Romes stuff and a Romes kill for 16-12, and Mady Yaden put three balls into the block or out over the next five points. Rutgers led 20-14, gave three back, and Willow ended the match with her seventh ace, and Rutgers’ first win of 2026.
Stats Breakdown
Rutgers hit .268, 49 kills and 19 errors on 112 swings, and outscored Bellarmine 72-52 on ten fewer attacks. The serve was the difference: 13 aces to three, and 13 Bellarmine reception errors to three. It came at a cost though. with 15 Rutgers service errors.
Romes led with 11 kills and five blocks. Howell was the most efficient attacker on the floor at .500, ten kills and one error on 18 swings, with a match-high seven blocks. Willow added seven kills and 14 points. Bolen had 21 assists, five aces and seven digs. Dyrstad had 13 digs.
Bellarmine’s top two were excellent and it did not matter. Erika Smith had 14 kills at .407, White 12 at .455. The rest of the roster went 16 kills and 17 errors on 73 swings, negative hitting, and the Knights finished at .164.
What Worked (and One Thing That Didn’t)
The serve won three sets. Willow’s run took the first, Bolen’s stole the third, and the two of them accounted for 12 of the team’s 13 aces. Against a team that could not pass, Rutgers did not need to be clean in transition.
What did not is the same thing that cost them the morning. Rutgers led 21-18 in the second and did not score again until 22-22.
Twice in ten hours the Scarlet Knights lost control of a set they were running, this may be an early sign for things to come.
Rutgers closes the Classic against Evansville tomorrow afternoon before heading to Nashville for the Big Ten/SEC Challenge against Arkansas and Vanderbilt. Caitlin Schweihofer’s seventh Rutgers team returns its record-setting setter, its leading attacker and a deep newcomer class. Two matches in, Friday morning looks like the outlier. Saturday afternoon is the last look before the schedule stops being forgiving.
