Girls volleyball: Mid-set service runs lead Sterling Newman past St. Bede in 2-set TRAC victory

PERU – Sometimes a volleyball team works on one facet of its game that is struggling during practice, only to have the other parts of its game that are normally solid stumble when the next match comes around.

That was the case for St. Bede during Tuesday’s Three Rivers Conference East Division match against Sterling Newman at a hot and steamy Abbot Vincent Gymnasium.

The Bruins were strong on the defensive side of the net for much of the 25-15, 25-22 loss to the Comets, but the combination of 11 hitting and seven serving errors by St. Bede, plus solid service runs in each set by Newman were too much to overcome.

“We worked really hard on our blocking at Monday’s practice because that is something we’ve struggled with, and Newman has a ton of girls who can hit it. I couldn’t be prouder of how we blocked the ball tonight, but unfortunately there were a few areas that are normally our stronger suits that struggled,” said St. Bede coach Abbi Bosnich, her team falling to 3-7 overall and 1-1 in conference play. “[Newman] had a couple servers step up and put together long runs that we just weren’t able to find a way of getting a sideout quickly. We, on the other hand, had seven serving errors, and you’re not going to win many matches with that many.”

St. Bede was led by Ali Bosnich (five kills, five points), Reagan Stoudt (two kills), Ella Hermes (six points, ace) and Ella Mudge (four points, ace).

Newman was paced by Kennedy Rowzee (seven kills, four points), Jess Johns (six kills, eight digs), Addison Foster (12 digs), Sophia Ely (nine digs), and Katie Grennan (seven points) and Molly Olson with six assists each.

“We had to come out in the first set with a different lineup than we’ve had due to a player suffering an injury on Saturday, but I thought the girls responded well to the adjustments we had to make,” Newman coach Debbi Kelly said. “The second set we got off to a little bit of a slow start, and much of that was because we were in more of a stand-up mode and not the fast-speed game we want to play.”

Newman (9-2, 3-0) used consecutive kills by Johns and an ace by Grennan to grab a 7-3 lead in the opening set. St. Bede closed to within 13-9, but a nine-point serving burst by Olson pushed the Comets’ lead to 23-9. The Bruins scored the next five points – including two kills by Ali Bosnich – but a serving error on St. Bede after another Bosnich winning swing finished off the set.

In set No. 2, St. Bede held leads of 3-0, 7-5 and 10-7 – the latter after a pair of Newman hitting miscues, which prompted Kelly to take a timeout.

“The timeout was to remind them we needed to be proactive and not reactive like we were,” Kelly said. “We are a much better team when we are reading the ball ahead of time and going after it. They responded, and we were able to get a nice win on the road.”

The teams traded points out of the break before a four-point run by Ely, which included an ace and tip-kill by Rowzee, preceded a five-point string by Grennan with an ace and a pair of kills by Rowzee that pushed the Comets’ advantage to 19-13.

St. Bede, with kills from Stoudt and Bosnich, as well as aces from Mudge and Amanda Wojcik closed the gap to 24-22, but a kill from the left side by Johns closed out the set and match.

“We did a good job early in the second set and then a great job of battling back in the second set,” Abbi Bosnich said. “I couldn’t be happier to see the improvements we made from the first to second sets. We have the rest of the week off, so we will work on the things we struggled with tonight and hopefully be ready to go with three more conference games next week.”

St. Bede is off until Monday when it travels to play Princeton, while Newman hosts Hall on Thursday.