VILLANOVA, Pa. – The women's volleyball team defeated the DePaul Blue Demons 3-1 on Saturday night at Jake Nevin Field House. The Wildcats won the first two sets.
With the win Villanova improved to 14-12 and 7-7 in BIG EAST matches. The Blue Demons drop to 5-20 and 3-11 in conference play.
Head coach Josh Steinbach on the win, "every win is a big win for us right now. Coming down the stretch in the league it is always exciting. We are glad we got one tonight. We hit for a really high percentage. The middles did a really nice job and Emma spread the offense really well. Back at it Friday night against Providence. It will be a big match."
Senior middle blocker Amanda Pedersen-Henry led the Wildcats' attack with 16 kills hitting .536.
Junior middle blocker Allie Olsonoski had 12 kills. She also added four blocks and two service aces.
Junior setter Emma Decker dished out 46 assists. Decker also had four service aces, three digs and three kills.
Junior libero Regan Lough added 16 digs and three assists.
The match started off back and forth between the two teams. With the Wildcats leading 9-7 they went on to increase their lead to 15-10. Villanova used a 4-0 run to make it 20-11. They continued to lead the rest of the way and won the first set 25-13.
The second set was all Villanova as the Wildcats jumped out to a 10-4 lead. Senior setter Ashley Knight had back-to-back aces to increase the Wildcats' lead to 14-5. The Wildcats continued to control the set winning 25-11.
DePaul battled back and led 10-7 to start the third set. The Wildcats fought back to make it 17-18 and then tied the set up at 20-20. The Blue Demons then led 24-21, the Wildcats tried to tie it back up but DePaul won the third set 25-23.
Villanova led 6-4 to start the fourth set. The Wildcats went on a 5-1 scoring run to lead 11-5. DePaul cut into the Wildcats' lead to make it 15-12 but they would never get closer than three. Villanova would win the fourth set 25-17.
The Wildcats will travel to the Providence Friars and Creighton Bluejays next weekend. The match against the Friars will be on Friday November 9th at 6:00 p.m. Villanova will then travel to Creighton to take on the Bluejays on Sunday November 11th at 3:30 p.m. Both matches will have live stream and live stats.
