No. 2 seed Trailblazers advance after Quarterfinal sweep over No. 7 Kaskaskia

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University volleyball team opened their 2024 postseason Wednesday night inside the Physical Education Complex.

The Trailblazers earned the No. 2 seed in this year's NJCAA Division I Region 24 tournament and began their tournament against No. 7 seeded Kaskaskia College from Centralia, Ill.

VU overcame a slow start in set one to close out the quarterfinal matchup with a 25-18, 25-12, 25-13 sweep over the Blue Angels.

Vincennes got the night off to a rocky start, quickly falling behind 7-3 to begin set one before rallying back with five straight points to take an 8-7 lead.

Kaskaskia would regain the lead after four straight points at 16-15 before VU again responded back in front of the home crowd with a 9-1 scoring run to put the set away 25-18 and gain the 1-0 match lead.

The Trailblazers would continue this momentum into set two, where VU opened the second set with a 10-4 lead before using a big 8-0 scoring run to increase their advantage to 18-5.

Kaskaskia would continue to fight, cutting the deficit to eight at 20-12 before VU closed out the set strong with five straight to take set two 25-12 and gain a 2-0 match lead.

Vincennes was again able to break away early in set three, using an early 4-0 scoring run to take a 9-4 lead before gaining full control over the match with seven straight points to increase the lead to 19-8.

The Blue Angels battled to the end but were unable to overcome this big deficit as Vincennes claimed set three 25-13 and completed the three set sweep.

"I thought we had our down moment early on," VUVB Head Coach Gary Sien said. "We had to take a step back and relax. I thought we were just a little bit tight at the beginning. But from that point on, early in the first set through sets two and three, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot that could stop us tonight."

"We talked about before the game of minimizing the errors and have as few errors as possible while staying aggressive and I thought we did that extremely well," Sien added. "It's always a difficult challenge in the postseason and Kaskaskia was coming in fresh off a match on Monday. But it was good that we were able to recover from that slow start pretty quickly and play with very few errors. It wasn't errorless, but it was just great execution all the way around. We served extremely. Several of our servers had long scoring runs. We had an opportunity to just run our offense with only seven hitting errors in the entire match, which is just outstanding."

"I also want to thank the fans that came out tonight," Sien said. "The parents, community, students and fellow VU Athletes really brought the energy tonight and helped give us that home court advantage."

The Trailblazer offense was led by sophomore Isadora Dias (Rio Grande de Norte, Brazil) who finished off another double-double with 13 kills and 14 digs on the night.

Sophomore Laura Tavares (Merida, Venezuela) finished her night with 10 kills, two blocks and two digs.

Sophomore Elisa Dalla Pozza (Vincenza, Italy) had another big night at the net, coming away with seven kills, two blocks, two digs and two set assists.

Freshman Paulina Fister (Tuszyn, Poland) had a big all-around game with five kills, 14 digs, one ace and one block.

Freshman Martyna Sadowska (Pila, Poland) and sophomore Allison Czyzewski (Louisville, Ill.) round out the offensive stats with Sadowska adding three kills and one dig and Czyzewski recording one kill on the night.

Sophomore setter Libby Mehringer (Jasper, Ind.) ran the VU offense very well on her way to 21 set assists, seven digs and four aces.

Freshman Rylee Edwards (Fairfield, Ill.) added 10 set assists, four digs and one ace and sophomore Dylan DeCoursey entered the game late with one set assist.

Sophomore libero Grace Flexter (Oblong, Ill.) controlled the VU back row defense with nine digs, five set assists and five aces.

Freshman Julianna Rettig (Antioch, Ill.) closed out the VU box score with three digs and one set assist on the night.

"Paulina had a very nice game tonight and in two of her rotations she was going directly against Kaskaskia's 6-foot-2 right side," Sien said. "We just told Paulina to swing away. Just hit the ball as hard as you can off her block. She was very accurate in the way she swung out there and being one of the smallest hitters we've had in a number of years, she's very athletic and her all-around game was really noticeable."

"Isadora also had a big game, leading us in kills with no hitting errors," Sien added. "But the biggest thing tonight was that she got 14 digs and she didn't the back row at all. I don't recall any of our outsides getting double digit digs without the back row. She was very good playing off block tonight. She really covered the floor and she typically takes more than our off blocker usually takes."

"Our back row did pretty well too with Paulina, Grace, Julianna," Sien said. "I thought our right backs Libby, Rylee and Dylan did pretty well. I thought our defense was pretty good. I don't think there were too many shots that hit the floor without us going for it."

"We're starting to run a fast set for Elisa on the slide and it's hard to stop her when we pass on point and she gets a good set," Sien added. "That's a hard set to hit because it's her offside, so it has to be right on point for her to get a good swing on it. That's really her strength, is that slide attack."

"Laura had a nice match," Sien said. "She swung pretty well. She only had one error and hit a high percentage. She just went out there and did her job on the blocks, got some nice digs in the off block."

"Grace is always stable in the back row and when she's on, we're going to win," Sien added. "With her serve receive and her defense out there, your libero is such a key position. People who don't know the game just don't know how key that position is and she's been very consistent from the beginning of the season to now."

The Trailblazers advance to the Region 24 semi-finals which will be held Saturday, Nov. 2 at John A. Logan College in Carterville, Ill.

Vincennes with play the No. 3 seed John A. Logan College in the semi-final round, with that match set to begin at 4 p.m. eastern.

VU will then return to the John A. Logan floor Sunday, Nov. 3 to close out the Region 24 tournament with the Third Place Match set to begin at 2 p.m. eastern and the Region 24 Championship match at 5 p.m. eastern.

Vincennes will need to reach the Region 24 Championship game to host next weekend's NJCAA Division I Midwest District Championships Friday, Nov. 8 and Saturday, Nov. 9.

"I've touched on it a little bit this season, but now we really have to use our experience," Sien said. "We've got seven players that were here last year. Won a Region Championship and made it to the District Final. You can talk about the volleyball part all day but the experience factor is what is going to be key for us. No one else in the Region has that experience. So that has to be the most valuable aspect of anything we have right now. We've been there before and that is going to be foremost our strength."

BOX SCORE

Kaskaskia – 18   12   13   x   x

VUVB (28-12, 16-3) – 25   25   25   x   x

VINCENNES STATS

Grace Flexter – 5 points, 5 aces, 9 digs, 5 set assists

Paulina Fister – 6.5 points, 1 ace, 5 kills, 1 block assist, 14 digs

Rylee Edwards – 1 point, 1 ace, 4 digs, 10 set assists

Dylan DeCoursey – 1 set assist

Julianna Rettig – 3 digs, 1 set assist

Laura Tavares – 11.5 points, 10 kills, 1 solo block, 1 block assist, 2 digs

Isadora Dias – 13 points, 13 kills, 14 digs

Allison Czyzewski – 1 point, 1 kill

Martyna Sadowska – 3 points, 3 kills, 1 dig

Elisa Dalla Pozza – 8 points, 7 kills, 2 block assists, 2 digs, 2 set assists

Libby Mehringer – 4 points, 4 aces, 7 digs, 21 set assists