On Tuesday, February 24, the Saint Xavier volleyball team took on the #5 ranked St. Ambrose University volleyball team. Saint Xavier started the game well, but could not hold that up for the entirety of the game.
The beginning of the first set did not start out well for the Cougars as St. Ambrose jumped out to an early 8-4 lead. Saint Xavier would close the gap, after scoring three straight points, to 8-7 but the #5 ranked team in the NAIA would score three straight points of their own to take an 11-7 lead.
The Cougars would fight back, going on another run to cut down their deficit to 11-10. After going back and forth, with the Fighting Bees leading 13-11, Saint Xavier would go on a critical run, scoring six out of the next eight points to take a 17-15 lead.
From here, these teams would battle trading points with each other until the Cougars found themselves up 24-21. At this point, it seemed inevitable that the Cougars would score the next point and take a 1-0 game lead.
But, once again, the Cougars could not close their opposition out, allowing the Fighting Bees to score four straight points to take a 25-24 lead on Saint Xavier. Bad memories of last week’s late set collapse against Robert Morris had to have creeped into the players and coaches’ minds as this run by St. Ambrose was going on and would once again be the story of yet another game.
But the Cougars would not allow a repeat of last week by scoring two straight points to retake the lead at 26-25.
Again, with the pivotal first set on the line, the Cougars had a chance to close out the #5 ranked team in the NAIA, but again could not by giving up two straight points and allowing St. Ambrose to retake the lead at 27-26.
Again Saint Xavier found themselves on the verge of repeating last week’s nightmare if they gave up the next point to St. Ambrose. Fortunately, they did not at this point thanks to a Fighting Bee serve error.
Tied at 27-27, St. Ambrose would score a point to take a 28-27 lead in the set. For the third time in set, the Cougars found themselves on the brink of defeat and for the third time they got themselves out of it, tying the game off a kill by Bradley Gadek.
Tied at 28-28, the Cougars would not allow the Fighting Bees to take the lead again, scoring three of the next four points to win the set 31-29 and taking a 1-0 game lead.
The second start began with both teams competing with each other. St. Ambrose would come out of this exchange with an 8-6 lead.
Down 8-6, the Cougars would go on a 6-2 run to take a 12-10 lead. From here, these teams would once again battle resulting in Saint Xavier holding onto a 15-14 lead.
But the #5 ranked team in the NAIA would show why they are ranked so high, going on a 10-2 run to take a 24-17 lead. This run resulted in the Fighting Bees winning the set 25-19 and tying the game at 1-1.
The third set was an exhilarating, competitive set that saw neither team hold a lead of more than two points on the other team. This set was a set that would be won based not on skill, but on the willpower of each individual on the court. Saint Xavier and St. Ambrose battled each other, each team looking to prove that they were better than their opposition. Unfortunately for Saint Xavier, they could not come out of this set as the victors as St. Ambrose would win the set 25-23 and take a 2-1 game lead.
After winning such a crucial and hard-fought set, the Fighting Bees came out with momentum and would use that momentum to take a 6-3 lead to start the fourth set. Saint Xavier would cut this lead down to 6-5, but again St. Ambrose used their momentum to score six of the next eight points to take a 12-7 lead.
But the Cougars would not allow themselves to go down quietly, going on a 8-3 run to tie the set at 15-15. This would be as close as the Cougars would get to the #5 ranked team in the NAIA, as they would go on a 9-1 run to retake the lead at 24-16 and would go on to win the set 25-17 and win the game 3-1.
Despite losing the game, the Cougars had a lot of great individual performances starting with Sean Barry, who finished the game with a career high 15 kills in this game. Another great individual performance came from Moises Lopez who had a career high 46 assists and nine digs. Dan O’Keefe had 12 kills and eight digs.
Sam Kull once again had himself a marvelous game. He recorded a match high 26 kills, which also was tied for the most kills he has ever had in a single game, and set the record for most points by a player in a four set match in Saint Xavier history with 26 points.
Kull also had seven blocks and a pair of aces. The pair of aces also set another Cougar record as Kull became the all time leader in career aces with 114 in Saint Xavier volleyball history.
With the loss, the Cougars have now lost three in a row and their record now stands at 5-8 with a conference record of 2-3. The team headed to Marshall, MO to take part in the two day Missouri Valley College Viking Invite to try and change their fortunes.
On February 27 February 28, the men’s volleyball team participated in the Missouri Valley College Viking Invitational. The invitational did not prove fruitful for the Cougars as they lost three out of four games in Marshall, MO.
On Friday night, the Cougars played in two games: one against the host, Missouri Valley, and against the #4 ranked Missouri Baptist University.The team played a hard fought game against the host team. They lost the first two sets by the scores of 25-17 and 25-19 in what were close sets that could have gone the Cougars way. Down 2-0 in the game, Saint Xavier rallied to win the third set 25-23. Even with the momentum though, the Cougars could not make the full comeback, dropping the fourth set 25-19 and losing the game 3-1.
Later that same day, the Cougars took on Missouri Baptist University. The first set was a hard-nosed, gritty set with neither team refusing to go down. The set came down to who had more willpower, and in this set the team with the higher willpower was Missouri Baptist University as they would win the first set 26-24.
The second set was just as competitive with the set coming down to the last few points, but again it was Missouri Baptist that came through, winning the set 25-21 and taking a 2-0 lead.
Missouri Baptist would then put the nail in Saint Xavier’s coffin, winning the set 25-17 to sweep the Cougars 3-0.
On Saturday morning, the Cougars faced another daunting challenge as they had to face the #1 team in the NAIA: Park University. Park would dominate the Cougars in this one, sweeping them 3-0, winning the first set by a score of 25-13, the second set 25-15, and the third set 25-15.
In the Cougars’ final game of the invitational, they played Bluefield College and finally got the win they have sought after for so long. The Cougars would win the game 3-1, but it did not come easy.
The Cougars lost the first set 25-21. But the Cougars would not stand another loss, going on to win the next three sets by the scores of 25-19, 25-19 and 25-17.Middle blocker Sam Kull had himself a great weekend recording 51 kills and 17 blocks in the four games they played.
After the invitational, the Cougars came out of it with an overall record of 6-11. The Cougars will have an opportunity to win their second straight game when they play Culver Stockton College at home on Wednesday, March 4, at 8 PM.
John Romando
Senior Sports Editor
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