UP IN THE AIR — Big Red’s Emma Lyons goes up to attempt a kill during Thursday’s match against Toronto inside the Crimson Center in front of teammates Aubrey Slussar and Anabelle Clutter. - Andrew Grimm

After starting the season 0-4, Big Red has now won seven of its last eight matches, five of those victories coming by sweep.

The latest of those victories came Thursday night as Big Red swept visiting Toronto inside the Crimson Center.

“I’m really proud of the girls,” Big Red head coach Logan Colabella said. “After those first four games they have really came together, bought in and played very well. It says a lot about them, they could have gotten down and given up after that tough start, but they didn’t, they’ve worked hard and it’s paying off for them.”

Big Red (7-5) started strong, using an 11-1 run to take control of the first set on the way to a 25-13 victory.

Toronto’s Jayna Reeves goes up to hit against Big Red during Thursday’s match. - Andrew Grimm

A 6-0 Steubenville run in the second set put them in control again on the way to a 25-16 victory for a 2-0 match lead.

In the third set, though, the Red Knights (5-5) made them earn the sweep. Toronto led the set multiple times looking to extend the match, leading by as many as three points, and it was tied multiple times, the last coming at 23-23 before Big Red scored the final two points to put it away.

“That’s something that we’ve really been working on, starting strong and being able to keep the momentum,” Colabella said. “We knew Toronto wasn’t going to go away easy, they’re a good team and their coach does a great job with them. They made us work hard to put it away, but it was good to see the girls be able to dig deep and be able to finish again.”

Toronto coach Shannon Bahen was disappointed it took her team so long to get going.

“We came out of the gate really fast (Wednesday) against Wellsville, but we came out a little sluggish in this one,” Toronto head coach Shannon Bahen said. “We got our backs against the wall before we tried to make up the deficit. By that point, it was too much.

Big Red’s Giuliana Cramer hits the ball against Toronto on Thursday. - Andrew Grimm

“Give Big Red credit, they put the ball in great spots and read our defense well. But, we had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes, too. We had 11 attacking errors in the first set. We have to regroup and figure it out.”

Leading the way for Big Red was Aubrey Slussar with 40 assists and three aces. Big Red also got 11 kills, two digs and an ace from A’rya Bigsby, seven kills and nine digs from Giuliana Cramer and seven kills from Phynyx Fleming.

A bright spot for Toronto was senior Gracee Rex recording her 1,000th career dig.

UP NEXT

Toronto: Travels to Southern Local on Monday.

MILESTONE REACHED — Toronto’s Gracee Rex (1) is congratulated by teammates after recording her 1,000th career dig during Thursday’s match against Big Red inside the Crimson Center. - Andrew Grimm

Big Red: Begins a four-match road swing at Cambridge on Saturday morning.