DENVER, Colo. – After winning the South Central Regional Championship less than a week ago, the Regis University volleyball team was back in action on Thursday evening in the quarterfinals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II Volleyball Tournament Championship. The Regis Rangers (29-4) swept the Saint Leo University Lions (24-11) 25-15, 25-18, and 25-18.
How It Happened: Regis jumped out to a 6-3 lead early on in the first set, showing little to no nerves in their play. Saint Leo managed to tie the game 7-7 a few points later. With a response of their own, the Rangers opened up four-point leads of 13-9 and 14-10 before they extended it to their largest of the set 15-10, forcing a timeout from the Lions. Another point after the timeout gave RU a 16-10 lead before Saint Leo got another point. With a 20-13 lead following an attack error from the Lions, another timeout was called by Saint Leo. After hitting a combined .464, the first set went to Regis by a 10-point margin, 25-15. Senior
Izzy Gosar led all players with five kills in the opening set as senior setter
Silvia Basso tallied 16 assists.
The Rangers started the second set by scoring the first three points coming on a kill from senior
Kelsey Green, a block by Green and redshirt-senior
Kristen Hornung, and a service ace from senior
Nikki Kennedy. After the Lions got their first point of the set, RU scored twice to take a 6-2 lead. As soon as Saint Leo closed the gap to two-points, 7-9, head coach
Joel List called a timeout to stop their run. Following the timeout, Regis extended the lead back to four points 13-9. The Rangers started to pull away late with a 23-16 lead, and the set wrapped up 25-18 on a kill from Hornung. RU hit .444 in the second set.
With a 2-0 lead, Regis started the third set just as they did in set two, scoring the first three points of the match. This prompted another timeout from the Lions, which stopped play, but could not stop the roll that the Rangers were on. RU blasted their way to a 17-11 lead which led to another timeout by Saint Leo. At the time of the timeout, Regis was hitting .522 in the set. The Lions responded well out of the timeout going on a 3-1 scoring run, bringing the score to 18-14 in favor of the Rangers. With a 20-15 lead, RU closed out the quarterfinal match on a 5-3 run to advance to the semifinal round of the NCAA Division II Volleyball Tournament Championship tomorrow night.
Game Notes: The Regis middle blockers, Hornung (12) and Kennedy (13), could not be stopped all night. In fact, the duo combined for 25 kills with only a single error in 35 attempts. They combined to hit nearly .700 in the match with Hornung posting an .800 attack percentage and Kennedy following at .600. As a team, the Rangers finished with a .430 hitting percentage. Gosar (.304 ATK %) added 10 kills in the match, with Green (.467 ATK %) and junior
Caitlyn Burroway contributing eight and seven kills, respectively. Basso was nearly perfect. She dished out 48 assists in only three sets for an average of 16 assists per set. She also had four blocks, four digs and a kill. Redshirt-freshman
Hannah Kennedy led all players with 10 digs on the defensive end.
Up Next for the Rangers: The Regis University volleyball team have advanced to the NCAA Division II Volleyball Tournament Championship tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. where they will play against the winner of the quarterfinal matchup between No. 1 seeded California State University – San Bernardino and No. 8 seed Molloy College that is currently taking place.
