VILLANOVA, Pa. – The Villanova Wildcats (12-8, 5-4 BIG EAST) will pass the halfway point of their BIG EAST calendar on Saturday night, hosting the Butler Bulldogs at Jake Nevin Field House to round out October.

STUNTED AT ST. JOHN'S
Villanova went to the brink in a road contest for the second time in as many matches, this time falling to the St. John's Red Storm during an excursion to Queens on Wednesday evening. It was almost a carbon copy of VU's Saturday match in Providence with the hosts capturing the two opening frames and Villanova storming back to force a decisive fifth, up until the final set went the way of the Johnnies and delivered the 'Cats their fourth loss of conference action. One highlight of the night for the Wildcats was their dominance at the net defensively, eclipsing their previous season-best of 11 blocks with 16 rejections on the evening including seven each from Riley Homer and Campbell McKinnon. First-year hitter Cat Young led the team with 14 kills on the night while Abby Harrell added 13 terminations in addition to a season-high five aces.

EXPERIENCE IS KEY    
Despite five freshmen drawing most of the billing in 2024, the 'Cats have gotten important production out of the vets, four in particular. Elizabeth Feczko and Taylor Jakubowski serve as the two captains and have been instrumental in imparting the program's culture to the younger players while playing crucial roles on the court as libero and setter in addition to on-court leaders. The rise of senior Ozzie Ozonoh in the middle has paid huge dividends for the Wildcats with the California native being the team's leading blocker and an efficient swinger on the attack. And five-year contributor Homer provides a physical option on the right side, one of the team's top pin blockers and a valuable point producer.

BREAKING DOWN THE BULLDOGS

• Butler comes into the weekend at 5-15 overall, 3-5 in BIG EAST play with all three of those wins coming in the last three matches. BU's lone non-conference victories both came against Indiana State while the Dawgs got swept at all three of their pre-league tournaments.
• The Bulldogs started out conference play 0-5 but bounced back in the last two weeks to the tune of three straight Ws, dispatching Providence and Seton Hall in four sets before a sweep of Georgetown last Saturday.
• Abby Maesch is the Butler kill leader, ranking sixth in the conference with 3.48 per set on the year. Reigning BIG EAST Setter of the Week Cora Taylor is sixth in the league for assists while Grace Boggess is top five in the BIG EAST for blocks (72) and Lauren Evans is the team leader in digs and ninth in the conference with 22 aces.

The match will stream on FloSports with statistics able to be found on StatBroadcast.