On February 17, the Cougars faced Calumet College of Saint Joseph and won this game in three sets thanks to their efficient offense.The Cougars started out well in the first set, scoring the first four points to gain an early 4-0 lead.
But Calumet would come right back, scoring the next three points to cut Saint Xavier’s lead down to 4-3. These teams would then trade the next four points, resulting in Saint Xavier holding a small 6-5 lead. At this point, it seemed that this set and game would be at tight throughout. But, the Cougars offense would eliminate any of those ideas, going on a massive 12-0 run to push their lead to 18-5.
At this point, the damage was done as both teams would trade points with each other, giving Saint Xavier a comfortable 25-10 set win and giving them a 1-0 game lead.
The second set played out much differently than the first. Saint Xavier and Calumet would trade points back and forth to start this set with a 3-0 run to start the set being the reason why the Cougars held an early 7-6 lead.
From this point, the Cougars would go on another run, scoring four straight points to extend their lead to 11-6. But Calumet College would fight back, scoring eight of the next nine points to take the the lead at 14-12.
Saint Xavier would come back to tie the game at 14-14, but once again Calumet would go on a run to again take the lead at 17-14. At this point, the Cougars showed their resiliency by scoring seven of the next eight points to take back the lead at 21-18.
From here, it seemed as if Saint Xavier would go on to win this set, but Calumet College had other plans for this set and would score four straight points to take a 22-21 lead.
If Saint Xavier had gave in and allowed Calumet to win this set, no one would have blamed them.
They had already put on a great performance and they were on the road which made this set that much easier to concede to the opposition. But Saint Xavier would not allow themselves to give into all these factors, rallying to score four straight points to win the set 25-22 and taking a big 2-0 game lead.
In the third set, the Cougars started out hot, jumping out to an early 7-2 lead. From this point, Saint Xavier would extend their lead, growing to as big as 16-7.
Calumet College tried to come back, scoring eight of the next 12 points to close the gap to 20-15 but it was not enough as Saint Xavier would go on to win the set 25-18 and sweep Calumet 3-0 in the game on their home court.
Sam Kull had another good game with eight kills and three blocks. Bradley Gadek also had a good game with six kills and four blocks.
Sean Barry would also finish the game with six kills. Moises Lopez finished the game with 11 assists and three blocks.
Libero Dominic Villa had an exceptional game with 13 digs as well as an ace. Saint Xavier’s offense was very efficient in this game, totaling 32 kills and only 11 attacking errors resulting in SXU having a team attack percentage of 29.2%
With the win, the Cougars move to 5-5 on the season with a Great Lakes Conference record of 3-3.
On Thursday, February 19, the Cougars battled the #10 ranked Robert Morris Eagles. After a good start by the Cougars, the Eagles would come back and take this game on the road from them.
The first set was started out very competitively with both teams trading points.
After Saint Xavier took an 8-7 lead, Robert Morris would score four out of the next five points to take the lead at 11-9. Not to be outdone, the Cougars would score five out of the next six points to take back the lead at 14-12.
Once again though, the Eagles would come back, scoring three straight points to rip the lead away from Saint Xavier. After some back and forth action, the pivotal point in the set came when Saint Xavier found themselves down 19-17, forcing the Cougars to take a timeout.
After the timeout the Cougars surged, scoring eight of the next nine points to take the first set from the #10 ranked team in the NAIA 25-20 and take a 1-0 game lead. The set winning point came off a kill by Craig Rosner.
The second set did not start out well for the Cougars as Robert Morris jumped out to an early 6-3 lead. From this point, Saint Xavier would find themselves in a see-saw battle with Robert Morris, eventually taking the lead at 15-14.
But Robert Morris would strike after this, taking 10 of the next 14 points to take a seemingly commanding 24-19 lead. Saint Xavier would not give up though, coming back furiously with four straight points to close the once insurmountable gap down to 24-23.
But with the set on the line, the Cougars would get in their own way of making a phenomenal comeback by committing a serve error by Dan O’Keefe to give Robert Morris the set by a score of 25-23 and allowing them to tie the game at 1-1.
This tie made the third set a very pivotal set to win for both teams. The set started out great for the home team who scored 10 out of the first 14 points in the set to take a 10-4 lead.
Robert Morris would come back though, scoring nine of the next 12 points to tie the set at 13-13.
After allowing the game to be tied, Saint Xavier would go on their own run, taking six out of nine points, to take a 19-16 lead. But Robert Morris, for the second time, would respond scoring four out of five to tie the game at 20-20.
With tensions high and both teams looking to take this crucial set, Saint Xavier looked like they were going to go on and win the set, take a 2-1 game lead, and find a way to upset the #10 ranked team in the NAIA on their home court when they took four out of five points to take a 24-21 set lead.
But Saint Xavier could not finish the job, committing two attack errors which resulted in Robert Morris getting five straight points, winning the set 26-24, and taking a 2-1 game lead.
After their unprecedented collapse at the end of the prior set, it would not have been surprising to see Saint Xavier cave in and give up on this game, but they did not.
In fact, they came out motivated in the fourth set and it showed by them taking four out of the first five points of the set to take an early 4-1 lead. But Robert Morris would come back to score five straight points and to take the lead at 6-4.
The Cougars once again could have caved, but instead came back to retake the lead at 7-6. These teams would battle for a little bit, trading points until both teams were tied at 8-8.
At this point, Robert Morris took control of the set, collecting 13 of the next 19 points to take a 21-14 lead late.
That run would be the deciding factor of the set as Saint Xavier and Robert Morris would trade points from here on out until the Eagles won the set 25-18, giving them a 3-1 game win. Sam Kull starred for the Cougars, recording a game-high 18 kills and seven block assists.
Dan O’Keefe also starred in this game for St. Xavier getting 12 kills, 10 digs, two aces, and four block assists. Bradley Gadek had seven kills and two blocks in this one.
Dominic Villa and Moises Lopez also had good games with Villa recording a game-high 15 digs and Lopez recording 40 assists, five digs, and three blocks.
With the loss, Saint Xavier’s record dropped to 5-6. Their conference record also suffered from this loss and it now stands at 3-4 on the season.On Friday, February 20, the Saint Xavier volleyball team traveled to Robert Morris University to take on the #7 ranked Warner University Royals in a neutral site.
The Cougars could not keep up with the #7 ranked team in the NAIA as they were red hot offensively in this one.Warner’s hot offense began to show up very early in the game, jumping out to an early 9-3 lead in the first set.
From there, these teams would trade points with each other until Saint Xavier found themselves down 16-10 in the set, where Warner would score four out of the next five points to take a 20-11 lead.
The Cougars attempted to come back, scoring the next three points to close the gap to 20-14, but it was to no avail as the Royals would close out the set on a 5-1 run to win the set 25-15 and take a 1-0 game lead.
The start of the second set did not resemble the start of the first set as both teams went back and forth with one another. Warner would come out of this battle with the lead at 9-7. But Saint Xavier would fight back by going on 6-1 run to take back the lead at 13-10.
These teams would then go back and forth with each other until the set was tied at 19-19. Tied at 19-19, Warner again found an offensive surge to put the Cougars away by scoring six straight points to win the set 25-19 and taking a 2-0 game lead.
The third set began just like the second with both teams trading points with each other. Saint Xavier would come out of this exchange with the lead at 6-5. The Royals offense would surge once again at this point, as they would score 14 of the next 17 points in this set to take a 20-8 lead.
This run ultimately sealed the set and the game as Warner would beat St. Xavier 25-12 in the set and 3-0 in the game.Sam Kull was the only player to record double digit kills with 10 as well as record two aces.
Dan O’Keefe also had a good game with eight kills and a Cougar best seven digs in the game. Sean Barry finished the game with six kills and five digs and Moises Lopez finished the game with a team-high 28 assists and also collected four digs.
It was clear from the beginning of the game the #7 ranked team in the NAIA outmatched Saint Xavier, especially in terms of offense. The Royals put on a superb offensive show in this one, recording 43 kills compared to just six attacking errors for a robust 45.7% team attack percentage.With the loss, Saint Xavier has now lost two games in a row with their record falling to 5-7.
The Cougars will look to rebound on February 24, at home against #4 ranked Saint Ambrose University at 7 PM.
Unfortunately, we will not have those results at press time.
John Romando
Senior Sports Editor