Brescia Volleyball Sweep Season Opener

The highly talked about 2020 volleyball season has begun and the Brescia Bearcats (1-0) opened it up with a hard fought three-set sweep (25-20, 25-21, 25-17) of Oakland City University (0-1) at home Tuesday evening in the Moore Center. The match was the first ever River States Conference competition between the two institutions with Oakland City joining the conference this year.

"It was nice to just get out onto the court and play," said head coach John Schmidt III. "With so much talk going back and forth about possibly postponing the season to the spring and other things, it was refreshing to put all of our stresses aside and play the game we love! It may have not looked great at times, but we managed to make the sloppy play look good. I was very proud how we handled ourselves out on the court and the way we grew throughout the night. Oakland City did some nice things on the court to push us and it was much needed. We have been seeing the same faces over the past three weeks of practice, the ladies were happy to see someone different. It was a great win to start the new season."

Junior outside hitter Melissa Bell pieced together a dominant performance logging eleven kills on 20 attempts hitting .550 to lead all attackers. Newcomer outside hitter Joie Porter, a sophomore transfer from Transylvania University, recorded eight kill and a team leading eleven digs to pace the Bearcats defense. Junior Shelby Hardison and sophomore Hannah Beitler each registered six kills and senior Jessica Molestina added five kills. Junior setter Brittney Just picked up where she left off from last year's RSC First Team selection by distributing 32 assists in leading her team. Besides Porter's performance on defense, Just and sophomore libero Savannah Aull each picked up nine digs. Bell added six digs and senior Miranda Boaz added five. Porter and Just lead all servers with three aces a piece.

Overall, the match totaled eleven ties and 14 lead changes. The Bearcats outhit Oakland City .198-.086, had 37 kills to the Mighty Oaks 27, and handed out 35 assists compared to OCU's 25. Brescia picked up one more serving ace than Oakland City seven and six respectively.

Set 1

The first set was the closest of the three with eight ties and eight lead changes, but the Bearcats pulled away with a 25-20 victory. Tied at nine, the Bearcats rolled off four straight points to take the lead for good.

Set 2

The Mighty Oaks stormed out in set two making runs of 7-2, 11-4 and 18-10 before the Bearcats found their game making runs of their own late to pull ahead 19-18 and 24-20 to close out the 25-21 win.

Set 3

The Bearcats jumped out to a 3-0 lead before a small run by Oakland City gave them a 7-4 edge. Several small runs by both teams kept the score tight with three lead changes before Brescia ignited a strong finish to pull away with a 25-17 sweep.