TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The No. 3 Washington University in St. Louis volleyball team wrapped up the regular season on Sunday afternoon as it took on the Fightin' Engineers of Rose-Hulman. The Bears, playing their third match in two days, secured their third-straight 3-1 win.
WashU finished the regular season 24-3 overall.
After RHIT went up 3-2 to start the opening set, WashU responded with an 8-1 run to regain the lead 10-4. The Fightin' Engineers chipped away and eventually tied the score at 11-11, only to see WashU go on another run, this one a 7-2 stretch.
Not to go down quietly, RHIT answered with its own 5-0 run, but once again the Bears answered with a point streak of 8-0, including kills by sophomore
Abby Krause, senior
Naya Ohuabunwa, and sophomore
Nia Jones, along with two RHIT errors and a service ace by sophomore
Avery Reed to claim the first set 25-18.
The second set went back and forth throughout as neither team could pull away from the other. The largest lead in the set was two for both teams, occurring multiple times. In the end, with WashU leading 23-22, RHIT bounced back and scored three straight points to level the match at 1-1 with a 25-23 win in the second set.
Quick runs to start the third set saw the score tied at 7-7. The Bears then scored the next three points for the lead, one they never gave up. The Fightin' Engineers got within one on a pair of occasions, 11-10 and 17-16, but a 5-0 run by WashU put them back up by six, 22-16. A service error by RHIT gave the Bears a set point, and a block by Jones and Ohuabunwa closed it out 25-18.
Trailing 5-3 at the beginning of the fourth set, WashU used a nine-point run to regain and take control of the set, 12-5. The Bears extended their lead to 10 points at 16-6. The Fightin' Engineers pulled within six at 17-11 with a quick run of their own, but WashU responded with a 5-0 run to go up by 11.
A kill by Ohuabunwa gave the Bears a match point, and a kill by Krause secured it with a 15-13 set-four win.
Senior
Leah Oyewole led all players with 16 kills on a .353 attack percentage. Krause nearly had a double-double with 15 kills on .278 hitting while collecting eight digs. First-year
Emma McGough and Ohuabunwa each tallied 11 kills in the win.
Mikhailenko finished the regular season with her 18th double-double as she marked down 43 assists and 15 digs. She was one of four Bears with double-digit digs, led by Reed's 17. Senior
Ellie Laird finished with 15, and sophomore
Isabel Campie had 10 digs.
WashU is the No. 2 seed in the upcoming 2026 UAA Tournament, which takes place Saturday, Nov. 14, and Sunday, Nov. 15, in Pittsburgh, Pa. The Bears will open with No. 7 seed Brandeis on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET. Complete tournament information, including brackets and game links, can be found
here.
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