St. John’s fell just a little short against Butler on Saturday night as the Bulldogs held on for a 3-2 victory. Butler’s Belle Obert and Stephanie Kranda led the way with 18 and 12 kills, respectively. Butler (18-5, 5-3) had set scores of 25-21, 25-20, and 15-9. St. John’s (14-11, 3-6)
St. John’s sophomore Karin Palgutova and junior Aleksandra Wachowicz held the fort down by recording 25 kills and 22 kills respectively.
Ashley Boursiquot recorded nine kills and 10 digs in the match to help the Johnnies force a 5th set. Boursiquout could be heard calling for the team to fight as Butler pushed SJU to the brink several times during the third and fourth sets.
The Red Storm started the first set strong earning easy points off of the out-of-sync Bulldogs, but the momentum would later swing in the favor of Bulldogs as they went on to take the first set.
Butler’s defense made SJU backcourt’s work for every point it tallied during the match. However SJU’s blocking, particularly by Boursquiot and great digs by Morgan Thomas helped to stabilize the team’s efforts to win the third set of the match, the first set win for SJU.
Shots down the middle and to the various sides of the nets were key for both teams, but SJU relied on this more than Butler. Down the stretch errors were a problem for SJU but Palgutova believed the team has made great strides to fix this issue.
“We had to eliminate a few balls,” Palgutova said. “We showed we know how to play volleyball”.
This was evident as Butler’s serve had SJU players diving and flying all over the court to respond to the
Palgutova and Wachowicz recorded 25 and 24 points in the match. While sophomores Deniz Mutlugil, Yaidy Santiago, and reserve freshman Briana Guzman and added a total of 17.5 points. Juniors Wachowicz and Boursiquot contributed 24 and 10.5 points respectively.
This game was especially tough for Boursiquot who received news that her grandmother passed away the morning of the game.
“I’m really proud of Ashley,” Coach Persico said.” She’s a local girl—from North Baldwin—who has grown tremendously in our program.”
“Overall I’m proud of my young team. It was great team volleyball on our part. We showed great heart and stamina”, the coach continued.
This heart and stamina will be required to help the Johnnies rebound this loss at home as they go on the road to face DePaul.
