Volleyball Falls To Liberty In Five Sets

Saturday, August 30

Buffalo, N.Y.

6:00 PM

Rutgers University

1-1,0-0Big Ten

Liberty

3-0,0-0CUSA

Rutgers

Liberty

Aug 30 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Rutgers volleyball took the first two sets, 30-28 and 25-15, against Liberty on Saturday evening at Alumni Arena, but the Flames came back with 25-18, 25-16 and 15-12 set wins to hand the Scarlet Knights the loss in five.

Liberty improved to 3-0 while Rutgers dropped to 1-1 on the year.

STANDOUT STATS

Double-doubles were secured by sophomores Aspen Maxwell and Lily Bolen. Maxwell captured her first career double-double with a game-high 20 kills and 12 digs. Bolen posted her second straight double-double behind a career-high 51 assists and 10 digs.
Maxwell was one of three Scarlet Knights with double-digit kills with junior Zora Hardison and senior Lexi Visintine each collecting 13 kills. Hardison finished the match swinging .478 with only two errors on 23 swings.
At the service line, Visintine led RU with four aces.
Defensively, sophomore Alleigh Dutton recorded a career-high 17 digs to lead both teams in the category.
At the net, Hardison came up with seven total blocks and tied her career-high with three solo stops. She also had three solo stops at Iowa back on Oct. 27, 2023.

KEY MOMENTS

SET 1 (30-28) | Rutgers trailed 22-17 but came back to force extra volleyball in the opening frame. A 5-0 spurt from the Scarlet Knights, including two of Aspen Maxwell's seven kills in the set, knotted the score for the first of seven occasions down the stretch. Liberty had a chance at taking the set twice, but service errors from the Flames while up 25-24 and 28-27 kept RU alive. A swing from Visintine tied the frame up for the final time, while a Maxwell kill wrapped up the set.

S1 | 👋 Still Grinding #GoRU ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/72KxEM5Bwz
— Rutgers Volleyball (@RUvball) August 30, 2025

SET 2 (25-15) | Down 8-4 to start, Rutgers grinded out a 15-3 run to take control of the second set. The Scarlet Knights hit a match best .552 with Maxwell and Hardison combining for 10 kills on 14 swings with no errors.

S2 | ... and just like that Tara Garvey gets the Scarlet Knights to set point #GoRU ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/YfaHmQGLz1
— Rutgers Volleyball (@RUvball) August 30, 2025

SET 3 (18-25) | Visintine gave RU a 6-5 edge, but Liberty came back with four unanswered to take the lead and stay ahead. Another Visintine kill had the Scarlet Knights trailing 15-12, but ultimately the Flames would not allow Rutgers to get any closer. Visintine and Maxwell led RU with three kills each.

SET 4 (16-25) | Liberty led the entire frame. RU had a surge late, scoring six of seven and forced the Flames to play for set point four times.

SET 5 (12-15) | The Flames went out to a 10-5 advantage and stayed in front. RU whittled its deficit down to two three times. The Scarlet Knights put together three straight thanks in part to a kill and block from Visintine to trail 11-9, a Liberty miscue on the attack saw RU down 12-10 and a Jenna DeLaMater ace kept Rutgers alive at 14-12. The Flames, however, served up an ace for match point.

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