On August 28, 2025, the BISV Bobcats varsity girls’ volleyball team defeated the Notre Dame Regents 3-1 in a preseason game. The Bobcats displayed strong defense and were able to keep up with the Regents. Although the Regents’ opposite hitting was strong, the Bobcats were far more consistent and evidently the better team in this showdown.
The Bobcats have historically struggled against the Regents, losing their last matchup two seasons ago 3 sets to none. However, it was rumored that most of Notre Dame’s strong players graduated last year, leaving the Bobcats with a good chance to take the victory.
The first set started rough on both sides, with a couple of hitting and serving errors from both sides. Around the middle of the match, though, BISV surged, with both Claire and Marrie scoring important plays early on. While the Regents’ opposite hitter played well, creating trouble for the Bobcat defense, the Bobcat defense held strong, and with a string of good serves that the weaker Regent backline defense could not answer, closed out the first set 25-16.
The second set went even better than the first, with the Bobcats immediately exploiting the vulnerability of the Regents’ defense and getting a large lead early in the set. The opposite hitting from Notre Dame cooled off, allowing Vienna to focus less on defense and hit tough shots across the court from the outside. This way, the Bobcats cleaned up relatively quickly, winning the set 25-14 and leading an impressive two sets to none.
The third set looked to be the same, with the Bobcats getting another early string of aces to put them comfortably ahead, while the defensive work of both teams was on perfect display, often leading to long rallies. At 16-11, the Regents had an extremely strong server on the court, leading to multiple aces. At the same time, their offense and defense both synced much better than the first two sets, causing the Bobcats trouble both when trying to attack and defend. Soon, the score flipped to 18-23, and despite a good late run from the Bobcats, the Regents sealed the third set 23-25.
With the momentum pushback in the third set and determination not to let the game go to 5 sets, the Bobcats began to fight back. In this set, they managed to counter the hard serves from the Regents as well as focus on aiming for the corners on spikes to build a ten-point lead late in the game. With a block on an overpass from the Regents, Marrie closed the game out, winning the Bobcats the entire game. The Bobcats played their best this last set, holding the Regents to only 13 points.
A rematch was scheduled for September 13 for the Bobcats to defend their win, but the match was unfortunately cancelled. Since these two teams will not play each other again, BISV therefore wins the matchup for the year 1 game to 0.