On Friday night, spirits appeared to be soaring for Boston College volleyball as the Eagles prepared to take on ACC rival Notre Dame.
The Eagles returned to the heights following a two-game road trip, which produced consecutive straight-set sweeps of Wake Forest and NC State.
The Eagles (12–13, 5–8 Atlantic Coast) continued their streak of dominance, throttling the Fighting Irish (9–13, 2–11) in yet another 3–0 sweep.
“I think we’ve proven that we can do this now,” BC head coach Jason Kennedy said after the match. “We just got to be able to continue doing it, keep the momentum rolling.”
In the first set, which would end up being the closest of the night, neither team was able to pull away much. The Eagles got off to a hot start on offense, logging nine kills to Notre Dame’s four, and going up by a score of 12–8. But this would end up being the largest lead of the set. A series of errors combined with an ace from Sydney Palazzolo allowed the Irish to storm right back and equalize the score at 12. The two squads then traded points until eventually reaching a deadlock at 21–21.
Audrey Ross came to the Eagles’ rescue though, delivering three kills in the final five points, including the assertive finisher that won the set for BC by a score of 25–23. She ended the game with a commanding 14 kills, all while recording a team-leading 18 points.
The second set began in blistering fashion for the Eagles who quickly took a 10–4 lead. But yet again, the Irish fought back. A four-point skid followed closely by two consecutive attacking errors by Ross allowed them to tie it up at 14. A break came soon after for the Eagles, though, as they successfully challenged an in-bounds call on a kill attempt from Mallory Bohl, effectively completing a three-point run that put them up 17–14.
This break gave the Eagles the boost they needed to pull away, eventually closing out the set by a score of 25–19 to go up 2–0.
And in the third set, with a third consecutive straight-set victory in their sights, BC did not take its foot off the gas pedal. After a relatively quiet second set, Halle Schroder erupted in the third, logging three kills in four points to put the Eagles up 10–4.
If Schroder’s surge wasn’t already enough, then the next point essentially put the nail in the coffin for Notre Dame. A laser off the hand of Lucy Trump looked destined to be a kill, only to be blocked at the net by none other than Schroder. All the momentum was with the Eagles, and it looked like the Fighting Irish had hardly any fight left.
“We got a chance to score a good amount of points out there,” Kennedy said. “We hit for a really high percentage, and I think the speed really ended up hurting these guys.”
The rest of the set saw BC cruise to a 25–17 win, notching a third straight 3–0 sweep over an ACC opponent.
