MIDD Splits NESCAC Weekend at Amherst

We entered Amherst feeling ready to pull an upset, but didn't quite bring our game to go with our talk, unfortunately. We had trouble passing, and then couldn't get anything going offensively until the 3rd game, and at that point it was too little too late. It was a night that saw all three of our power outside hitters hit for negative percentages, and the middles were only slightly better. Elissa Goeke and Kate Heath provided the only real bright spots on the night as Elissa had 6 blocks, and Kate was the only hitter on the team without a hitting error on the night. We ran Lauren all over the court in an effort to run our offense, and we ran Natalie all over the backcourt trying to dig balls that we we couldn't get a hand on at the net. Well, I guess those things happen sometimes. To give Amherst credit, they were on their game, and were forcing the action all night.

Fortunately, we came out ready to play the next afternoon. After a feast compliments of Lauren's parents (AGAIN!--Thank you!!), we slept in and then had a leisurely morning around Amherst before meeting back at the gym at noon to prepare for Hamilton. The team had a meeting with the captains beforhand, and got everyone in the right mind-set, and we overpowered a much weaker Hamilton team. The good news for us was that everyone played, and with every sub, the level of our game improved, which was great to see. We started to click, and even though it's much easier against a weaker team, it's also easy to get lulled into not being sharp, and I think we improved our sharpness as the match went on.

We have two more dual matches, and two more weekends before the Conference Tournament, and half of those remaining matches are Conference ones, so it'll be a fun race to the finish this year as the Conference is once again all mixed up. There is so much parity, it'll likely all come down to that final weekend of Conference play. We're looking forward to our practices to continue to work on what we've identified will help us be successful down the stretch here, and can't wait to get those uniforms back on again to put it to the test.