Last week’s loss to the University of Chicago marked the fifth straight time Washington University’s volleyball team dropped a match against a ranked opponent, a virtually unprecedented run of futility for the historically dominant program. But a 16-14 win in the fifth set against No. 18 University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, the host of this weekend’s invitational, halted that ignominious streak and gave the Bears their first perfect week in more than a month.

Whitewater and Wash. U. traded leads for the first four sets, and the Warhawks led the decisive fifth set 9-6 before four Whitewater errors and three service aces by freshman middle hitter Caroline Dupont helped the Bears mount an 8-0 run. But Whitewater staved off five match points, tying the set at 14 and bringing back memories of Wash. U.’s loss to No. 6 Elmhurst College two weeks ago, when the Red and Green squandered two match points in a fifth-set defeat.

This time around, though, a kill by sophomore middle hitter Jackie Nelligan and another Warhawk error gave Wash. U. the narrow 16-14 victory.

“I think it’s a huge confidence booster for us,” Nelligan said. “Just that entire game, we really came together as a team and got excited about playing a team that was a good team, so I think it’s huge going forward for us and being able to look at that game and know that we can do it again.”

In addition to her 15 kills and .519 hitting percentage in the match, Nelligan tallied 11 blocks—five solo, six assisted—the highest one-match total for a Bear since Ellen Bruegge’s 11 in November 2007.

The Red and Green weren’t harshly tested in any of their other three matches over the weekend and easily defeated St. Catherine University, Westminster College and DePauw University. Against both St. Catherine and Westminster, the Bears coasted to wins in sets one, two and four, only faltering in the third; only the DePauw victory came in a sweep.

“That’s definitely something we’ve struggled with this season and something that we need to continue to focus on,” Nelligan said about the team’s tendency to win the first two sets before struggling in the third. “One thing that we’ve been talking about is that it’s not OK for us to simply wait for the other team to give us the win, and I think dominating the first two sets, it’s hard to still have that mindset going into the third game.”

Save for the third-set blip against Westminster, when they tallied an uncharacteristic 11 attack errors, the Red and Green had their best hitting performance of the season in the match. In the three victorious sets, they totaled 50 kills and only four attack errors—good for a .474 hitting percentage.

Freshman Rexi Sheredy led the way with a career-high 21 kills, padding her team-leading total for the season, to go along with 10 digs in her 10th double-double of the year.

“Coming in as a freshman and getting so much playing time and having so much responsibility on your shoulders is really hard,” Nelligan said of Sheredy. “She’s really started stepping it up and playing aggressive and playing smart, and I think that came through a lot this weekend.”

Other key contributors in the weekend’s four matches included freshman Kalehua Katagiri, who posted 70 digs and 18 assists, and sophomore Cassie Wang, who was a two-way threat with 91 assists and 30 digs.

Next weekend, the Bears host the second conference round robin of the season. This series of matches is highlighted by Wash. U.’s Sunday bouts against New York University and No. 5 Emory University, two teams with a combined record of 40-30 against whom Wash. U. will put its regained confidence to the test.

Nelligan asserted that the game against Emory in particular is “a big rivalry game, obviously, and taking the game against Whitewater and the confidence that it built for us is going to be huge.”