Volleyball finishes home stand with impressive victories

By: Nick McGill

After a much-anticipated rematch of Xavier women’s volleyball’s 3-1 win on Sept. 27 at Butler, Xavier wound up on top once again against Butler on Friday night.

The Musketeers rallied in the latter part of the match for a thrilling win in five sets (25-22, 26-28, 13-25, 25-27, 15-9).

This win pushed their record to 11-7 overall and 4-1 in Big East play.

After winning the first set, the Musketeers took an early lead in the second set before the Bulldogs came back to capture the set.

The Bulldogs then won the third set, handily leaving Xavier in a hole.

XU rallied from behind to win the fourth set and closed out the match with a six-point victory in the final set.

This is the second of two victories tallied by the Musketeers against Butler this year, the most recent being the last regular season matchup between the two teams.

Leading the charge for the Musketeers was freshman outside hitter Abbey Bessler who recorded 22 kills and 10 digs for her 12th double-double of the season.

Junior setter Aubree Smith nearly recorded a triple-double with 45 assists, 16 digs and eight kills.

Xavier recorded another victory last night, notching a 3-0 match win against the Morehead State Eagles at Cintas Center.

Senior outside hitter Sarah Brown recorded her 1,000th dig of her college career and finished the match with 1,018 digs.

Redshirt junior middle blocker Alex Blair led the team with six blocks while Bessler contributed a match-high nine kills.

Next the Musketeers have a four-game road trip including a visit to the crosstown rivals at the University of Cincinnati.

During the trip, the Musketeers will have three conference games as they look to keep up the winning pace, having won four of the last five games.