VUVB picks up two wins on first day of the Showdown on the Wabash

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Trailblazer volleyball team extended their winning streak to eight games Friday after defeating Edison State Community College 25-23, 25-19, 25-13 and Snead State Community College 22-25, 25-23, 25-19, 25-9 to begin the Showdown on the Wabash at the P.E. Complex.

The Trailblazers opened the two-day tournament against Edison State Community College from Piqua, Ohio.

The first set against the Chargers began slowly for VU until sophomore Lara Gomes de Castro (Sao Paulo, Brazil) gave the Blazers the momentum with a 7-0 scoring run.

Edison State fought back and cut the deficit to a single point but were unable to take the lead as Vincennes closed out the first set going the distance 25-23.

Vincennes grabbed the early momentum in set two as well, holding a 16-9 lead midway through the set.

Edison State could only manage to cut the VU lead down to four as Vincennes took set two 25-19.

The Trailblazers looked to close out the opening match of the Showdown on the Wabash in the third set and quickly built a 12-4 lead over Edison State.

The Chargers would rally back to within four, but Vincennes regained the momentum and closed out the third set scoring nine of the final 10 points to win set three 25-13 and complete the sweep.

"We struggled in the first set against Edison State," VUVB Head Coach Gary Sien said. "I thought we had some decent leads in the set but we just kept letting them catch up. If we had just been a little more consistent in one or two areas, we would have won the set a lot sooner. We just get into these ruts at the beginning of matches all year and it seems like it takes us a set or a set and a half to warm up."

"At least we got better as the match went on and got a bit more consistent," Sien added. "It all starts with our serve receive and it seems like it just takes a while for us to get our serve receive going and that's why we have such slow starts. Once we got into our game, Edison State really had a hard time keeping up with us and our offense was pretty much spot on."

"I thought we had a very nice serving runs too," Sien said. "Anytime we are doing well, it's because we are able to have some nice serving runs. Hannah had a couple. Lara had a couple. Josephine had one. Whenever we are able to have three or more servers get on nice runs, we are hard to stop. Strong serves and being almost surgical about hitting at certain players, plays into our hands."

"Pretty much since I've been back, we haven't been at 100 percent as a team," Sien added. "And tonight, we again had to make adjustments. We moved Alexis to the outside and moved Maecy to the right side as a hitter and both of them really played well all day for us."

The Trailblazers were led in the first match of the day with another double-double performance by freshman Paige Parlanti (Las Vegas, Nev.) who finished with 17 kills, 15 digs, two aces and two blocks.

Sophomore Malgorzata Banasiak (Gdynia, Poland) had a very nice offensive game, finishing with nine kills on a .571 hitting percentage, with a pair of digs and a block.

Freshman Maecy Johnson (Chrisman, Ill.) and sophomore Hannah Graber (Montgomery, Ind.) were next with Johnson ending with four kills, two blocks and two digs and Graber finishing with three kills, three aces, 10 digs and a team-high 19 set assists to finish off a double-double of her own.

Freshmen Alexis Chrappa (Effingham, Ill.), Nisa Salis (Ankara, Turkey) and Tuana Turhan (Ankara, Turkey) each finished with two kills.

Chrappa added five digs and a block, while Salis finished with three blocks, two digs and an ace and Turhan ended with four digs, two blocks and a set assist.

Freshman Audrey Buis (Franklin, Ind.) entered the match in the third set and recorded one kill and one dig.

Sophomore setter Josephine Mulligan (Saint John, Ind.) ended the match with 11 set assists, eight digs and an ace.

Freshman libero Morgan Netcott (Montague, Mich.) and Lara Gomes de Castro controlled the back row defense with Netcott leading the Blazers with 20 digs and a set assist and Gomes de Castro adding six digs.

Vincennes took the floor again later Friday night to finish out the first day of the weekend tournament against Snead State Community College from Boaz, Alabama.

Set one was a back-and-forth battle with Snead State gaining the upper hand with a late 3-0 scoring run to put the Parsons ahead by four.

Vincennes was unable to complete the late comeback as Snead State took set one 25-22.

Vincennes looked to bounce back in set two, trading points and the lead with Snead State throughout most of the set.

Vincennes would take the lead back late at 23-21 and held on through four straight side outs to take set two 25-23 and even the match at 1-1.

The Trailblazers again battled through the early stages of the third set before using a 7-1 scoring run to take a three-point lead.

VU would hold on to this lead as Snead State was unable to put together a scoring run of their own with the Trailblazers taking set three 25-19 and taking a 2-1 match lead.

Looking to close out the first day of the Showdown on the Wabash on a high note the Trailblazers took their play to another level in the fourth set.

VU grabbed a big lead with an 8-1 scoring run and put the match away with a late 10-1 scoring run as the Trailblazers took set four 25-9 and earned the 3-1 match victory.

"The first set against Snead State was definitely winnable," Sien said. "They are a good team. They are not super tall, but they are very athletic. They ball control extremely well and they cover really well. If we block, we have to really put down the block because they can pick up everything. Even though the first set was close, we have to look in the mirror to see who was at fault. We had at least five serving errors. We probably hit the ball out or into the net about 10 to 12 times. If you have 15 or more errors in a set, you are probably not going to win."

"I thought it continued into the second set, but we were able to build a couple of nice leads," Sien added. "Then what they did was what we had been doing at the end because they started missing serves at critical moments that really hurt them. Then we were able to really find our game from that point on."

"The fourth set was more like us," Sien said. "Everything was near perfect. We were serving really tough. We put up a really solid block. When our block is really effective, it's not going to show up in the numbers. It shows up with five players having double-digit digs because we were able to take away the line shots. That's when we are really on our game."

"I thought we hit really well too," Sien added. "I thought we were a little sketchy in the first two sets hitting wise but I thought we more than made up for it in the third and fourth sets. In the first set, when we didn't pass the ball well, we had most of our sets going to Paige and Snead State was able to figure that out quickly and she got blocked a few times. No matter how good a hitter is, we need to spread out our offense so the blockers aren't just camped out on one hitter. We had that in the third and fourth sets and our setters did a really nice job of distributing the sets, which gave us more one-on-one situations."

VU was led offensively again with another double-double by Paige Parlanti who led Vincennes with 19 kills, 17 digs, two aces and a block.

Alexis Chrappa also reached double-digit kills, tying her career-high with 12 kills, three digs and three blocks.

Malgorzata Banasiak ended her night with five kills, three blocks and one dig, while Maecy Johnson and Tuana Turhan each finished with four kills. Johnson added a set assist and Turhan finished with three blocks and a dig.

Nisa Salis finished the match with three kills, a team-high four blocks, four digs and an ace.

Setters Hannah Graber and Josephine Mulligan each recorded kills, with Graber adding two and Mulligan ending with one as both ended with double doubles. Graber led the Blazers with 23 set assists and 11 digs, with three aces, while Mulligan added 20 set assists and 13 digs.

Morgan Netcott and Lara Gomes de Castro kept the ball alive in the back row with Netcott leading VU with 28 digs and a set assist and Gomes de Castro ending the night with 15 digs and a pair of aces.

The Trailblazers will return to the P.E. Complex floor Saturday, Oct. 8 for the final day of the Showdown on the Wabash.

Vincennes will play host to Chattanooga State Community College, who the Blazers faced earlier this season at Wallace State, at 10 a.m. eastern before closing out the weekend against St. Louis Community College at 2 p.m. eastern.

"When we played Chattanooga State in Alabama, we were coming off a game earlier in the day and they were playing their first match of the day against us," Sien added. "Which really allowed us to take it to them early and take the first set 25-7. That will probably not happen again tomorrow. They are going to be ready for us. We were able to stop two of their three hitters last time. It again comes back to serving and blocking. We are going to have to have that again tomorrow because they have seen us and coming here and beating us could really make their season."

"St. Louis is a little bit of a rebuilding program," Sien added. "So, we will see exactly where they are at, but typically they have a nice team. St. Louis is a pretty good volleyball area in Missouri and they usually take advantage of that by recruiting more locally. I think the last time we played St. Louis was in this tournament in 2019 and they were really good that year. We were down 1-2 to them and came back and won in five."

"Let's just take care of our side of the net," Sien said. "We have to be aware of certain things the other team does, but if we take care of it when the ball is on our side, we'll be fine. The fourth set against Snead State today, one of our players mentioned after the game, that is what we are talking about turning things around because right now it's more about mindset for us. We're pretty talented, but it doesn't mean a thing if we don't put it together on the court. One of our players mentioned after the fourth set against Snead State that that is what we are capable of. I hope to have that set roll into tomorrow's matches and really the rest of our season."

BOX SCORE

GAME ONE

Edison State – 23   19   13   x   x

VUVB (21-5, 8-0) – 25   25   25   x   x

INDIVIDUAL STATS

Josephine Mulligan – 1 point, 1 ace, 8 digs, 11 set assists

Audrey Buis – 1 point, 1 kill, 1 dig

Lara Gomes de Castro – 6 digs

Morgan Netcott – 20 digs, 1 set assist

Paige Parlanti – 20.5 points, 2 aces, 17 kills, 1 solo block, 1 block assist, 15 digs

Alexis Chrappa – 2.5 points, 2 kills, 1 block assist, 5 digs

Nisa Salis – 4.5 points, 1 ace, 2 kills, 3 block assists, 2 digs

Maecy Johnson – 5 points, 4 kills, 2 block assists, 2 digs

Tuana Turhan – 3 points, 2 kills, 2 block assists, 4 digs, 1 set assist

Hannah Graber – 6 points, 3 aces, 3 kills, 10 digs, 19 set assists

Malgorzata Banasiak – 9.5 points, 9 kills, 1 block assist, 2 digs

GAME TWO

SNEAD STATE – 25   23   19   9   x

VUVB (22-5, 8-0) – 22   25   25   25   x

INDIVIDUAL STATS

Josephine Mulligan – 1 point, 1 kill, 13 digs, 20 set assists

Lara Gomes de Castro – 2 points, 2 aces, 15 digs

Morgan Netcott – 28 digs, 1 set assist

Paige Parlanti – 21.5 points, 2 aces, 19 kills, 1 block assist, 17 digs

Alexis Chrappa – 14 points, 12 kills, 1 solo block, 2 block assists, 3 digs

Nisa Salis – 6 points, 1 ace, 3 kills, 4 block assists, 4 digs

Maecy Johnson – 4 points, 4 kills, 1 set assist

Tuana Turhan – 5.5 points, 4 kills, 3 block assists, 1 dig

Hannah Graber – 5 points, 3 aces, 2 kills, 11 digs, 23 set assists

Malgorzata Banasiak – 6.5 points, 5 kills, 3 block assists, 1 dig