VU Trailblazers volleyball begins 2022 season with pair of home sweeps

VINCENNES, Ind. – The 2022 Vincennes University volleyball team began their Region 24 Championship defense Sunday afternoon, opening the season with a tri-match against Region 24 opponent Shawnee and East Central College from Missouri at the P.E. Complex.

The Trailblazers began the day by hosting the Shawnee Saints, opening their season with a big Region 24 showdown.

VU quickly jumped on top in set one, using a 10-0 scoring run to gain a commanding lead.

Vincennes continued to add on with a pair of five-point scoring runs to take the opening set of the season 25-6.

Shawnee held tough to begin set two with the Trailblazers holding a slim 7-5 advantage in the early stages, before VU would go on to outscore the Saints 18-4 to take set two 25-9.

Vincennes again had to battle through the early part of set three, with the set tied at seven-all.

VU would manage to grow a lead with an 8-1 scoring run as the Trailblazers held off Shawnee and completed the Region 24 sweep taking set three 25-13.

The Trailblazers were led offensively by freshman Paige Parlanti (Las Vegas, Nev.) who led the Blazers with nine kills against the Saints, while also adding four digs and a pair of aces.

Freshman Kennedy Sowell (Effingham, Ill.) had the hot hand against Shawnee, going on a scoring run at the net and ending her first collegiate match with six kills.

Sophomore setters Hannah Graber (Montgomery, Ind.) and Josephine Mulligan (Saint John, Ind.) ran the VU offense very well in the opening game of the season, with Graber ending with 13 set assists, along with five aces and Mulligan adding four set assists and two aces.

Freshman libero Morgan Netcott (Montague, Mich.) stepped up defensively for the Trailblazers, leading VU with seven digs from her back row position.

“Coming off of a very tough scrimmage yesterday at the University of Indianapolis, who will likely be one of the better NCAA Division II team this year, the question was what did we learn,” VUVB Head Coach Gary Sien said. “I’m just proud of this team for being able to take everything that we learned yesterday and turn it around in less than 24 hours. We were very ‘on task’ against Shawnee and we did a very good job of limiting mental mistakes.”

“One thing it seems like this VU team can do so far this year is to be able to go on some big scoring runs,” Sien added. “We had some servers, like Hannah, who were able to put together some nice service runs. I really try to emphasize that if we can serve tough and be very surgical in our service locations, then we can be able to take control of the game.”

The Trailblazers would return to their home floor to close out the opening day tri-match as VU hosted East Central College.