Team Beats St. Michael's

We got off to a somewhat of a rocky start in this match, dropping the first game. Our serve receive struggled a bit, so our offense had trouble getting going also. We made some changes, and I think we started to relax a bit too, which helped in the second game. Game two was pretty much ALL US. They only scored 12 points, and we really looked sharp. Kate Heath came in at the right side and got some good blocks right off the bat, and that helped set the tone for that game. We out-played them in the Middle spot, and got great support from both Lindsay and Jane offensively from the outside. Both Lauren and Kate had 5 Kills from the setter and RH spots, respectively, which provided us with a very balanced attack.

We still need to hone in our blocking, but I think we're making some progress with it. Floor Defense should be a strength of ours, but we're still ironing out some early kinks there also. Our team depth really came through tonight as 12 of our 14 players played in the match. It was a great team win, and we had great contributions from a lot of different people, which is a very good sign. We almost ran out of subs, too, which was new for us. With the new rule changes the allowable subs are down to 12, and I think in the last couple of games we were right at 11. We had great serving support from the bench too, which was nice. St. Micheal's never gave up, though, and to their credit came out in games three and four and kept fighting, despite falling behind repeatedly. We're still working on closing out games more decisively.

Our first NESCAC weekend is coming up this Friday and Saturday, so we're getting geared up for that, and it should be an exciting weekend. We play Trinity first on Friday night, and then Conn. College, and Wesleyan on Saturday afternoon--all played at Hamilton College. We're looking for a little pay-back, as we lost two of these three matches last year in the 5th game.