Trailblazer volleyball closes out regular season with pair of home sweeps

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University volleyball team celebrated Sophomore Recognition Day Saturday at the Physical Education Complex in style, finishing out the 2022 regular season with a 25-9, 25-19, 25-22 sweep over Region 24 opponent Kaskaskia College and a 25-10, 25-12, 25-11 sweep over Kankakee Community College.

Vincennes began the day in the final Region 24 regular season game of the year against Kaskaskia College.

VU set the tone early for the day with sophomore setter Josephine Mulligan (Saint John, Ind.) beginning the game with an 8-0 scoring run.

The Blue Angels attempted to battle back before a late 6-0 run by freshman libero Morgan Netcott (Montague, Mich.) gave the Blazers a 22-8 run. The Trailblazers would hold on the take the first set 25-9.

Vincennes took an early lead in the second set as well before Kaskaskia responded back with an 8-0 run to grab their first lead of the day.

The Trailblazers would answer back on their home floor to take the lead after a 5-0 scoring run and hold on to take the second set 25-19.

Looking to complete the sweep, the Blazers found themselves in a battle in the third set. The two teams traded early scoring runs before VU would use an 8-2 scoring run to take a five-point lead.

Kaskaskia would cut the deficit to two points but were unable to regain the lead as VU closed out the sweep 25-22 to extend their Region 24 winning streak to 22 matches.

“It has been a long week for us,” VUVB Head Coach Gary Sien said. “We haven’t played since last weekend and I think the whole team was itching to get back out on the floor after a less than ideal weekend at Mineral Area. Our team was very anxious to play and I think we saw that all day today.”

“When we played Kaskaskia earlier this season, in the fourth set, they served match point at least once,” Sien added. “We were really close to losing that match in Centralia. But different circumstances today and even different personnel from that match. I think we are a much better team than when we played Kaskaskia before. So, we were definitely looking forward to this one because out of all of the other Region 24 matches this year, they were the closest to beating us.”

“I really thought that our offense was much more diversified today,” Sien said. “Our first match earlier this year we had Paige and Audrey combine for over 50 kills and we never want only two of our hitters having that many. When all six of our hitters are more balanced, that’s really more of what we want and that was our goal coming into today.”

“We really worked this past week on getting our middles more involved in the offense,” Sien added. “I credit the team, first of all, because our first contact that we made was very good today. Secondly, our setters did a wonderful job of distributing the sets. Our goal at the beginning of the year is to always establish the middle attack first and then run the sets out to the pins. If we have that middle presence, that takes away their middle blocker and gives us more one-on-ones on the pins and when it’s one hitter against one blocker, the hitter is going to win more often.”

The Trailblazers were led offensively by freshman Alexis Chrappa (Effingham, Ill.) who led the Blazers with 12 kills on a .478 hitting percentage, while also adding a block and one dig.