Fulton, Mo 11/1/2023- The Westminster College volleyball team hosted the tenth-ranked team in the country, the Washington University-St. Louis Bears (WashU) on Wednesday night. The Bears would sweep the Blue Jays 3-0 (25-12, 25-15, 25-23). They improved to 19-7 on the season and the Blue Jays fell to 16-12. 

WashU showed why they will possibly be in the national title hunt later this month and dominated the first two sets of the match. The Blue Jays refused to go down without a fight and jumped out to an 8-3 lead in the third set, forcing a timeout by the Bears coach. Westminster would continue to roll and made the Bears call another timeout at 14-7. The Blue Jays would have a 23-17 lead in the set. Then the Bears scored three points in a row before head coach Dalton Tucker called timeout to try to pause WashU's momentum. The Bears would score five straight points after the timeout to win the set 25-23 and ended the match on an 8-0 run. 

The Blue Jays offense was led by middle hitter, Meghan Nolte, who had a team-high six kills. Kylie Hasselbacher was right behind her with five kills in the match. Elle Turner led the Blue Jays in digs with eight. Kirsten Schrader would have seven digs in the match from the libero position. Braylee Montgomery and Caityln Wheadon would both play the setter role. Montgomery would have ten assists in the match and Wheadon would have nine. 

The regular season will conclude with a tri-match on Saturday, November 4th, as the Blue Jays host Webster University and Greenville University. Westminster will face the Gorloks at 10:00 a.m. and then the Panthers at 2:00 pm. The Panthers and Gorloks will play face each other at 12:00 p.m. All three games will take place inside the Historic Gymnasium in Fulton, Mo.