One day after sweeping Arkansas in a huge win for the program
, it was a different outcome, almost the inverse to the dominant tale of the tale. Rutgers and Vanderbilt hit the same ball on Wednesday night. The Scarlet Knights finished at .242, the Commodores at .245, three thousandths apart across 267 combined swings. Neither team blocked the other out of the gym. Neither ran away with a rally-scoring stretch that decided anything permanently.The match was decided at the service line, and it was not
close there.
Vanderbilt put 12 balls on the floor from behind the end line. Rutgers put down three. That is the whole margin in a 20-25, 25-23, 23-25, 21-25 loss in front of 1,648 at Historic Memorial Gymnasium, and it is the exact scenario Rutgers had not yet been asked to survive. Wednesday was the first look at this group when the ace stopped coming. The answer was a four-set loss and a 3-2 record.
Never Even in The First, Level after the Second
Natalie Robinson tied the opening set at 3-3 off a Lily Bolen set and that was the last time the score was even. Vanderbilt ran it to 8-4, then 10-5. Rutgers clawed back to 14-12, and then Rachel Ogunleye killed, Malia Romes sent one long and Reese Animashaun aced for 17-12. The Scarlet Knights hit .138 in the set with seven attack errors on 29 swings and gave away five reception errors.
There was a late answer worth noting. Down 21-13, Rutgers won seven of the last 11 points, four of them Skylar George kills, and pulled within 23-19 to force a Vanderbilt timeout. Animashaun ended it 25-20 on Avery Scoggins’ set. The set was never competitive as a whole, but the last five minutes of it were.
The second was the best volleyball Rutgers played all night with 14 kills and one attack error on 36 swings, .361 for the set, 12 ties and four lead changes. The turn came with Rutgers down a point at 14-15 and Bolen at the service line. Robinson killed twice, Romes killed twice, and four straight points made it 18-15.
Rutgers pushed it to 23-20, then made it interesting the hard way. Avery Jesewitz missed a serve, Imani Howell stuffed Maya Witherspoon solo for set point at 24-21, and Vanderbilt saved two of them before Animashaun sent an attack long. Rutgers took it 25-23 and the match was level.
An Ace Ends the Third, and the Fourth Never Turns
The third had 11 ties and six lead changes and Rutgers was in it to the last rally. Bolen’s ace made it 10-8. Vanderbilt answered to lead 18-15, and Rutgers dragged it back to 21-21 on an Animashaun attack error. Aspen Maxwell’s kill off Brooke Baldwin’s set put Rutgers up 23-22. Witherspoon answered, Kayla Dunlap terminated for set point, and Hailee Mack served the set away, her ace dropping in behind George at 23-24.
The fourth had one tie and one lead change, both at 1-0. Rutgers hit .156 with six attack errors and trailed 21-14 before a four-point run, a Vanderbilt service error, a Robinson-Jesewitz stuff, a Romes solo block and a Romes kill off Bolen, cut it to 21-18 and forced a Commodore timeout. Dunlap’s kill on Scoggins’ set closed it at 25-21.
Stats Breakdown
Every one of George’s seven reception errors was scored as a Vanderbilt ace. Three came in the first set, two in the third and two in the fourth, and one of them ended a set. Mack finished with four aces, Samantha Wunsch four, Animashaun two and Scoggins two. Vanderbilt paid for the aggression, missing 18 serves to Rutgers’ 12, and it did not matter. The Commodores sided out at 65.6 percent to Rutgers’ 59.8 and scored on 40.2 percent of their own serves to Rutgers’ 34.4. Rutgers’ three aces came one apiece from Bolen, Kaila Kalama-Bajet and Kenzie Dyrstad.
Romes matched Animashaun and Wunsch for the match lead with 14 kills, hit .379 on 29 swings and added four blocks for 16.5 points. George put down 11 kills on 29 attempts without an attack error, also .379, and added 10 digs. Robinson had six kills on 14 swings and three blocks.
The block was Rutgers’ one clear team edge, nine to five. Howell had five of them, two solo. Kenzie Dyrstad dug 18 balls, seven more than any Vanderbilt player. Bolen ran 23 assists and Baldwin 18 in the two-setter system, and neither setter was the reason the offense sputtered. Scoggins ran 47 for Vanderbilt.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
Serve receive, first and most obviously. Twelve Rutgers reception errors to Vanderbilt’s three, and seven of the 12 charged to one passer. George was excellent in every phase Vanderbilt let her play and hunted relentlessly in the one it could pick, and there is no version of the Big Ten schedule where that stops being the plan against her.
The serve itself, second. Karis Willow served seven aces by herself in the Bellarmine win five days ago. Rutgers served three as a team on Wednesday. Willow played one set, started the first, went 2-for-7 with three attack errors for a minus-.143 and did not appear again, and Jesewitz took the spot and finished with six kills on 21 swings, .190, plus two blocks.
Third, the two sets Rutgers lost badly were the two it could not hit in with .138 in the first, .156 in the fourth, 13 attack errors between them. In the two sets it did hit, it won one and lost the other on a service ace.
The one thing that did work was Romes. The freshman middle from Kalida, Ohio, who graduated high school early to bank a semester of coursework before Big Ten travel started, was the best Rutgers player on the floor against an SEC opponent in her fifth college match. Fourteen kills, four blocks, 16.5 points, and a .379 clip that led every Rutgers starter who took more than 14 swings. She is a first option now, not a promising newcomer.
Rutgers is 3-2 and returns on the banks for the home opener against LIU this coming Tuesday at Jersey Mike’s Arena. The Scarlet Knights arrive having learned exactly what they came to Nashville to learn, in the least comfortable way available as this team can hit with an SEC opponent for two hours and lose anyway, because the serve is not yet a weapon it can count on and serve receive is a target anybody can find.
