Ursuline Academy has gone 6-1 against Notre Dame Academy recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Thursday. The Ursuline Academy Lions will face off against the Notre Dame Academy Pandas at 6:30 p.m. Both teams are coming into the matchup red-hot, with Ursuline Academy sitting on four straight victories and Notre Dame Academy on 16.
Ursuline Academy is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another highly-ranked state team: St. Henry, who was ranked fourth at the time (Ursuline Academy was ranked sixth). Ursuline Academy had just enough and edged St. Henry out 3-2 on Tuesday.
Ursuline Academy was actually outscored in aggregate across those five sets (110-107), but they still managed to win. The match finished with set scores of 16-25, 25-20, 25-22, 21-25, 20-18.
Addy Franz continued her habit of posting crazy stat lines, getting ten digs, two aces, and a kill. She has been hot recently, having also posted 25 or more assists the last 12 times she's played. Rainey Weidman was another key player, getting 12 digs.
Ryle typically has all the answers at home, but on Wednesday Notre Dame Academy proved too difficult a challenge. They blew past the Raiders 3-0.
One reason for the win was Notre Dame Academy's just kept getting better, winning each set by more points than the last. The match finished with set scores of 25-20, 25-17, 25-14.
Julia Grace and Lacey Hostetler were among the main playmakers for Notre Dame Academy as the former had 20 digs and the latter had 11 digs.
Notre Dame Academy was lethal from the service line and finished the game with ten aces. That's the most aces they've posted in their last nine games.
Ursuline Academy is on a roll lately: they've won eight of their last ten matches, which provided a nice bump to their 15-6 record this season. As for Notre Dame Academy, their win was their 11th straight on the road dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 25-2.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Thursday's contest: Ursuline Academy has really dialed in their serving this season, having averaged 7.8 aces per game. However, it's not like Notre Dame Academy struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.4. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Ursuline Academy skirted past Notre Dame Academy 3-2 when the teams last played back in October of 2023. The rematch might be a little tougher for Ursuline Academy since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
