On February 10, the Saint Xavier men’s volleyball team took on Trinity International University. The Cougars would win this game handily by a score of 3–0.
The Cougars soundly won the first two sets of this game, but had a little bit of a rough time trying to close out Trinity in the third set.
Saint Xavier started out hot in the first set, jumping out to an early 8–3 lead. From there, both teams would trade points with each other.
Trinity International would attempt to come back in the first set, coming as close as 16–12 to the Cougars. But Saint Xavier would not allow them to get any closer, scoring nine of the next 12 points to win the set 25–15.
The set winning point came from a kill by Dan O’Keefe and Saint Xavier up in the game 1–0.
The second set was like a mirror image of the first set, with Saint Xavier jumping out to an early big lead of 12–4. And once again, Trinity international University would find themselves down and trying to come back.
They did go on a mini run, that close their deficit to 17–12, but Saint Xavier once again would respond with their own big run scoring eight of the next 11 points to win the set by a score of 25– 15.
This set was won due to an attack error by Trinity’s David Swanson and gave Saint Xavier a commanding 2–0 lead.
The third set, unlike the first two, was very close and intense with both teams trying to accomplish their goal of winning this pivotal set.
After Saint Xavier took an early 7–4 lead, Trinity International would come back to make the game close at 7–6. They would also do this again after Saint Xavier took a 10–7 lead, to tie the game at 10–10.
But Saint Xavier would go on a key run, scoring six of the next seven points to take a 16–11 lead. After that, these teams would trade points until Saint Xavier had a 20–14 lead.
At this point, Trinity International put forth one last ditch effort to try and take this third set from Saint Xavier, scoring four straight points to close their deficit to 20–18 and forcing them to use a timeout.
After the timeout, Saint Xavier settled down and scored two straight points to push their lead to 22-18. Trinity international would respond, scoring two straight points of their own. After trading a point with each other, Saint Xavier found themselves up 23–21, seeing a perfect opportunity to take this pivotal conference game on the road.
The cougars would do just that, scoring the 24th point of the set off another kill from O’Keefe and the 25th, and game clinching point, from a kill by Craig Rosner.
O’Keefe lead the Cougars with nine kills, and also led the match with six digs. Sam Kull set milestones in this game after recording seven kills, two blocks, and a game-high five aces.
With the kills and blocks, Kull now has over 500 career kills and over 200 career blocks further establishing himself as one of the best male volleyball players to ever play for Saint Xavier.
Moises Lopez had a great game recording 24 assists and four aces. Sean Barry also had a good night, recording seven kills and three digs. Saint Xavier’s offense looked to prove a point in this game, which showed by their season best attack percentage of 33.9%.
The win gave Saint Xavier a record of 4–4 in the regular season as well as a 2–3 conference record. The Cougars looked to continue their winning ways on the road against Saint Ambrose University on February 13.
However, when Saint Xavier went to Davenport, Iowa to take the #5 ranked St. Ambrose University. The Cougars would lose this game 3-0 after winning their other game this week 3-0. Despite getting swept in this game, the sets were tightly contested with Saint Xavier’s lack of offense being the reason they lost. In the first set, Saint Ambrose set the tone for the set by going on a 7-2 run to start the game.
But Saint Xavier would claw its way back, scoring four straight points to cut the deficit to 7-6. For a while, both teams would trade points with each other until St. Ambrose, with a 9-8 lead, score nine of 13 points to take a 18-12 lead.
The Cougars could not answer back with a run of their own this time, as they would trade points with #5 Saint Ambrose resulting in a 25-18 set win for Ambrose and a 1-0 game lead.
The second set started out much differently for the Cougars as they competed with Sainy Ambrose at the beginning.
At one point, Saint Xavier took a 8-7 lead on Ambrose. But that would be the last time they would lead in the set as.
Saint Ambrose would score six straight points to take a 14-8 lead.
The Cougars attempted to get back into the game, cutting their newfound big deficit down to 15-11, but again Ambrose would increase their lead to 21-11. Saint Xavier would not quit though, going on a run that saw them take five out of the next six points to reduce Saint Ambrose’s lead to 22-16.
And again, when facing set point at 24-16, they would refuse to lay down by scoring the next three points to cut Ambrose’s lead to 24-19.
But it turned out to be too little too late as the opposition would take the next point to win the set 25-19 and take a 2-0 game lead, giving Saint Xavier the daunting task of having to win three sets in a row, on the road, against the #5 ranked team in the NAIA.
At the beginning of the third set, the Cougars seemed to be ready to take on that challenge, staying close to Saint Ambrose. But, up 7-6, Saint Ambrose would score four straight straight points to push their lead on the Cougars to 11-6. From that point forward, the Cougars just simply could not muster up a big enough offensive run to get back into the game.
They would get close to a comeback; when they were down 21-15 Saint Xavier managed to score three out of the next four points to minimize their deficit to 22-18.
But Saint Ambrose scored the next three points to slam the door shut on a potential monumental comeback by the Cougars to take the set 25-18 and take the game 3-0.
Despite a game-high 11 kills from Dan O’Keefe, Saint Xavier just could not produce the same amount of offense that they produced in their game against Trinity International earlier in the week, committing 21 attack errors while getting only 30 kills. This resulted in the team having an attack percentage of 10.7% for the game.
Sean Barry posted a good game-line with eight kills and two block assists. Moises Lopez also had a good game with 21 assists and six digs. Senior Sam Kull finished the game with five kills and two blocks. Bradley Gadek and libero Dominic Villa played well defensively.
Gadek had four blocks, while Villa had a game high 11 digs. With the loss, the Cougars record drops to 4-5.
They will be looking to bounce back when they go back on the road this Tuesday against Calumet College of Saint Joseph in Whiting, Indiana.
John Romando
Senior Sports Editor