Trailblazers stay unbeaten in Region 24 play after sweep of Wabash Valley

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Trailblazers continue to stay unbeaten in Region 24 play after notching their 19th consecutive Region 24 victory Thursday night on Faculty and Staff Appreciation Night at the P.E. Complex.

Before the game, members of the VU volleyball team recognized different members of the Vincennes University Faculty and Staff who have made a tremendous impact on them at VU.

The Trailblazers rode this wave of support from the pregame festivities into the opening set with the Blazers jumping out to a 16-6 lead after a 7-0 run by sophomore Josephine Mulligan (Saint John, Ind.).

Vincennes continued with this momentum throughout the first set, not allowing the Warriors to battle back as VU grabbed set one 25-12.

Set two began as more of a back-and-forth battle with both teams trading points before sophomore Lara Gomes de Castro stepped up to serve an 8-0 run to give the Blazers an 18-11 lead.

Wabash Valley was unable to respond to this lengthy scoring run as the Trailblazers rallied through to take set two 25-15 and hold a 2-0 match lead.

The third set was even more closely contested with Vincennes holding a one-point 15-14 lead before launching a 7-1 scoring run to open a 22-15 lead.

Looking to close out the sweep, Vincennes did not allow the Warriors to gain any ground in the set with Vincennes coming away with the 25-17 set three victory and completing the Region 24 sweep 3-0.

"I want to thank everyone who showed up to tonight's match," VUVB Head Coach Gary Sien said. "Especially the faculty members who came and just have a big impact on the lives of our students at VU. Our athletes have made some lifelong relationships with these faculty members and these relationships are very important as they continue on academically. It was great to see so many faculty members come tonight, as well as the rest of the fans that came tonight."

"We hoped that people would show up tonight and hoped that people haven't forgotten about us since we haven't played at home in so long," Sien added. "It was just nice to have a pretty full gym tonight and it was great to see how many people stayed through the end of the match as well. Some people could have easily called it a night and left after the second set but a large majority of the fans tonight stayed and our team appreciates that."

"We always say that anytime we are going to play a Region 24 school, we are going to their very best game," Sien said. "Coming off of a long match Tuesday at Kaskaskia that almost lasted two and a half hours, we had to come back and regain some of our game tonight and I think we really did that extremely well. It comes down to our serve receive. We had a few points where we struggled but overall, we serve received really well tonight."

"I also thought we brought back our tough serving game," Sien added. "I thought against Kaskaskia we didn't serve as well and I think that is something for us to learn from this point on. Like last weekend in Alabama, we were serving rockets and that's tough to face as an opponent. If you have a strong serving game, you can really dictate what the other team does on offense."

"It was just great to host Faculty and Staff Appreciation Night again," Sien said. "We haven't been able to have this event since 2019 and I personally always love to meet some of the professors that we have on campus. This was just a great night that we get to showcase our team for the Vincennes community and we were able to show them some high-level volleyball that they might not know existed here."

VU was led offensively by freshmen Paige Parlanti (Las Vegas, Nev.) and Alexis Chrappa (Effingham, Ill.) Thursday night.

Parlanti led the Blazers with 16 kills, while also adding eight digs, four blocks and two aces, while Chrappa finished with nine kills and four digs.

Sophomore Malgorzata Banasiak (Gdynia, Poland) returned to the floor for the first time in over a week to finish with six kills and a pair of digs.

Freshman Audrey Buis (Franklin, Ind.) added four kills and seven digs to her totals, while fellow freshman Nisa Salis (Ankara, Turkey) added a pair of kills and a pair of blocks.

Sophomore Kaley Roush (Shoals, Ind.) entered the game in the third set and came away with a kill to round out the VU offense.

Sophomore setters Hannah Graber (Montgomery, Ind.) and Josephine Mulligan ran the Vincennes offense well, with the pair just missing double doubles.

Graber led the Trailblazers with 21 set assists, nine digs and a pair of aces, while Mulligan added 12 set assists, eight digs and a pair of aces as well.

Freshman Tuana Turhan (Ankara, Turkey) continues to control the game at the net, finishing her night with three blocks and two digs.

Freshman libero Morgan Netcott (Montague, Mich.) led VU defensively, ending with 17 digs, two set assists and a pair of aces, while Lara Gomes de Castro finished with four digs and an ace.

"At times we don't even really talk about Paige because we just expect her to get a double-double every night," Sien said. "It's almost automatic that she would get around three or four kills per set. She is a high-level player and we knew that when we were recruiting her. But even outside of that, she is just a great kid. She has a great personality. It was really great that she was able to invite the new head of the Fire Science department to the game tonight. She and all of our players are great representatives of our program. Of course, volleyball was a big part of them coming here, but sometimes just as big of a reason is our academics. Academics are very important to us and it's really the main reason why we host a Faculty and Staff Appreciation Night."

"Alexis had a very good match tonight as well," Sien added. "She had some big swings out there. Our setters did a really nice job of setting both her and Malgorzata on the right side tonight. The two of them had really nice games tonight because our setters were able to get them a really nice ball all the way out to the pin."

"Hannah is another player, two years in, that is almost automatic for us," Sien said. "We expect her to get a bunch of assists and run our offense, play defense, serve tough. I knew two years ago how important it would be for us to sign her, knowing that she could be at the center of our offense. It's just our expectations. All of our players have reached our expectations, no one here has disappointed us. Obviously, we still have a long way to go to reach our team goals, but everyone has done everything that thought they could do."

"It's very nice to have a group like this that is very goal oriented," Sien added. "When I was gone, our coaches really helped keep them together, but it was also due to the leadership within the team. I have to give them, especially the sophomores, credit for keeping this team together this year. That's why we are so successful. Because we have players that are like that and we were able to stick together as a team."

The Trailblazers will have a quick turnaround before their next match, hitting the road tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 30 to take on Region 24 opponent Lake Land College in Mattoon, Ill. This match is set to begin at 7 p.m. eastern.

"Serve receive," Sien said. "It is always going to be about serve receive. We are a very average team if we pass 15 to 20 feet off the net. In Alabama, I thought we serve received extremely well. Then we had a taste of what happens when we don't serve receive well on Tuesday and we serve received a lot better tonight and we saw that result."

"There should never be a time from this point on where we have several sets where we are not serve receiving well," Sien added. "We've played almost 25 matches now this season, so we should have some experience by now at facing a lot of different situations. It's always a challenge to serve receive on the road but we should be more ready for it."

"Lake Land has three good hitters that we need to look out for," Sien said. "I thought when we had some trouble earlier in the year, we couldn't stop two of the three and they were able to take a set on us. But we just can't allow that tomorrow because much like Tuesday, if we lose a set, it opens the doors for everything. We just have to be ready for a really tough game tomorrow, more than ready."

BOX SCORE

Wabash Valley – 12   15   17   x   x

VUVB (18-5, 7-0) – 25   25   25   x   x

INDIVIDUAL STATS

Kaley Roush – 1 point, 1 kill

Josephine Mulligan – 2 points, 2 aces, 8 digs, 12 set assists

Audrey Buis – 4 points, 4 kills, 7 digs

Lara Gomes de Castro – 1 point, 1 ace, 4 digs

Morgan Netcott- 2 points, 2 aces, 17 digs, 2 set assists

Paige Parlanti – 20 points, 2 aces, 16 kills, 4 block assists, 8 digs

Alexis Chrappa – 9 points, 9 kills, 4 digs

Nisa Salis – 3 points, 2 kills, 2 block assists

Tuana Turhan – 2 points, 1 solo block, 2 block assists, 2 digs

Hannah Graber – 2 points, 2 aces, 9 digs, 21 set assists

Malgorzata Banasiak – 6 points, 6 kills, 2 digs