Cincinnati Box Score
Youngstown State Box Score

The University of Evansville volleyball comes out of Saturday at the Bearcats Invitational in Cincinnati with a 3-2 win over Youngstown State to improve its record to 4-2.

“It was a huge win for us after the disappointing loss to Cincinnati this morning,” said Evansville head coach Mike Swan. “We weren’t playing well, but had huge rallies in the second and fourth. I thought we finally settled down in the fifth. It feels good to be 4-2, but we still have things to work on. Hopefully the wins here will bring us confidence going into next weekend.”

Sophomore Brooke Maher set a career-high with 24 kills while adding 13 digs. Sophomore setter Ellen Sawin broke her career high in assists with 68. Freshman Hannah Wilson tabbed 17 kills and 12 digs, and junior Emily Wandersee put down 13 kills. Junior Julie Sylvester recorded 25 digs in the match.

UE led in the beginning of the first set, but Youngstown State kept close with back-and-forth scoring throughout the middle of the outing. YSU grabbed hold of an 18-17 lead, and a 7-2 run gave YSU the first set 25-19.

The second outing for the Purple Aces started similar to the first, but Evansville overcame a 24-21 lead by YSU to win the set 31-29.

Starting out different from past sets, UE was never able to a grasp an advantage over YSU in the third. The Lady Aces got within one in the beginning, but couldn’t overcome the Penguins, as they took the third set 25-15.

Evansville started slow in the fourth set, falling behind as much as six points, but picked up speed late. The Purple Aces forced the set into extra points, and a kill from Maher and Wandersee ended the set 28-26 in favor of UE.

In the fifth, the Lady Aces fell behind early, but quickly regained ground. Back-to-back aces from April Lubrecht and a team effort on kills lifted UE 15-9 to win the match.

Cincinnati 3, Evansville 0

Host team Cincinnati handed Evansville its second loss of the season after sweeping the Lady Aces Saturday morning.

Senior Ginta Gabruseva and junior Wandersee led the team with six kills while Maher had five. Wandersee also tallied two blocks.

Evansville travels to its last regular season tournament on Friday, September 11 to take on Wright State in its Raider Challenge in Dayton, Ohio, before facing Kent State and St. Peter’s on Saturday.