**Fall 2017: End of semester update**
Butler’s Men’s Club Volleyball team just ended one of its most successful semesters in recent years. With a few huge wins at Purdue, the Dawgs finished the semester with a record of 12-8.
After starting the year 6-2, here’s how the team did:
Northern Illinois tournament
The Dawgs traveled to Northern Illinois University in early November. We started the day against the reigning national champion, St. Louis University. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that wasn’t our best match. We played better against NIU’s alumni team and University of Illinois, but we lost two close matches and put us at 0-3 for the day. We bounced back with a nice win against Toledo. Rob Smith played some good defense in that match to help us get back on track. The Dawgs then won a revenge game against University of Chicago. The team lost to University of Chicago at this tournament last year and didn’t want the same result again. Brandon “Pipe” Gansell and Sam Smith led the offensive attack for the Dawgs in a blow-out win against the Phoenix. With those two wins, the dawgs had momentum going into the last match of the day against Western Michigan. Despite Nate Kelch’s blocking and Brandon Gansell’s hitting, the Dawgs dropped a tight one to Western Michigan to end the day 2-4.
Purdue tournament
The Dawgs were back in action the weekend following Thanksgiving Break at Purdue University. The team played some of their best volleyball of the semester and took third in a very tough tournament. The tournament started with a huge win against Wisconsin. In the words of Matthew Condon, it was a “thriller”. The Dawgs’ offensive attack got hot early and the Badgers had no answer for Jakob Jozwiakowski’s defense. “Jaws” would be later be named “First Team All-Defense” for his efforts. The Dawgs took the momentum from this match into the rest of pool play by knocking off Michigan and UW-Milwaukee in 2 sets each. We ended day 1 of the tournament with a match against Indiana. The Dawgs took the first set after an incredible serving run from Jonathan Phoun. IU’s block proved to be too much in sets 2 and 3 as the Dawgs dropped a heartbreaker to end the day. Day 2 of the tournament started with a come-from-behind victory against Central Michigan. The Dawgs won the first set easily but found themselves down 19-24 in set two. The Dawgs ran off 7 straight points to take the second set, sending us to the semifinals against Wisconsin. We split the first two sets with neither team being able to pull away until the last few points. The Badgers came out hot in set three and the Dawgs were never able to recover. The Dawgs ended the tournament 4-2 and a third place finish.
Looking ahead…
The Dawgs are looking forward to a home tournament on January 27th. This is the first time in many years that we’ve had enough guys for an A and B team which is very exciting. More details about this to come. We’d love to see you all there.
The team is also looking forward to the return of Jacob Gulley. The team’s “real president” will be back after spending all of last semester recovering from a stress fracture.
We’re excited to announce that the team will be going to NATIONALS for the first time in over 5 years. The team will be in St. Louis from April 11th-14th to compete with schools across the country.
Be sure to follow us on social media for more updates!
Facebook: Butler University Men’s Volleyball Club
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