The past two years, Bulldog volleyball has fallen to the Missouri-St Louis Tritons in the regional tournament finals. Now, Ferris enacted its revenge by taking down the Tritons 3-0 in the Midwest Regional Quarterfinals on Thursday.
With the win over Missouri-St Louis, Ferris has won eight of its last 10 matches in straight sets.
Costly errors by the No. 1 seeded Bulldogs saw the Tritons take a 10-13 lead in the opening set before a Ferris timeout. Then, the Bulldogs came back to take a 14-13 lead. The Tritons never regained the advantage, as Ferris won the first set by a score of 25-21.
The second set saw Ferris get off to a hot start taking a 7-2 lead early, but then the Tritons went on a 6-0 run to take an 8-7 lead. The squads went back and forth with the lead before the Bulldogs finally pulled away from the Tritons with a 19-15 score and never looked back as they won the second set 25-19.
The third set was all Ferris, as they got on the board first and never lost its lead. The Bulldogs fast-paced offense sent the Tritons home with a score of 25-12.
Head coach Tia Brandel-Wilhelm had nothing but praise for Missouri-St Louis following the win.
“Missouri-St Louis is such a great team, I thought their setter did a phenomenal job opening up their hitters, but obviously we were just really excited to come out on top in the match.”
The Bulldogs had five players tally five or more kills, with senior outside hitter Olivia Henneman-Dallape leading the match with 11 and freshman outside hitter Gabby Piazza having eight.
The Bulldogs advance to the Midwest Regional Semifinals on Friday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. at Ewigleben Sports Arena. Ferris will take on the winner between the Lewis Flyers and the Rockhurst Hawks.