MIDD Splits First Conference Weekend

It was parent's weekend at home, but at least we weren't too far away. We had several parents there for our first weekend of Conference Matches, and we game them some good action to watch. We managed to beat a scrappy Trinity team in three straight sets, but it took a great comeback in the 3rd game to take them in straight sets. I think we were down 24-20, or something like that, and staged a very solid comeback that would see us win the 3rd set 26-24. We had some very solid serving all match, and our offense was pretty solid as well. They really didn't have an answer for Jane (17 kills), unless they happened to block her. Once she got past the block, it didn't come up all that often. Julia (.364) and Whit (.538) had very good matches too, as you can see by their hitting %'s.

The second match of the day was our re-match with Amherst, but this time it counted toward the Conference standings. We came out and took control of the match right away by winning the first two sets. Their libero hadn't seen us because she missed the last match, and when our passing was on, and we had our full offense running, we were finding good success. They ended up subbing out their starting setter, found a new groove with their freshman setter, and their Libero started to read our hitters more, and the match tightened up to a very even match that would go 5. It was a match of momentum swings as we dominated early, and they dominated late, but we both poised some come-back stretches along the way. We were down 11-6 in the 5th, and came back to within 11-12 before bowing out at 12-15 in the 5th.

Jane and Julia paced our offense with 15, and 11 kills, but Elissa and Jane had the stats in hitting % with .353, and .268 respectively. Also, Lauren had 5 kills on 13 attempts for a .385 hitting %. Lauren's set distribution was excellent, too, as she dished out 41 sets to both OH's, and 32 to Julia, and 28, and 17 to the middles. It was a very good match, that, despite the momentum swings, could have gone either way. A missed serve here, and a pass too tight there, and the timing of those big mo' swings both ways helped determine the final outcome. We'll be looking forward to a re-match at some point later in the season, but we have a lot of work to do before we start planning for that! We have another Conference Weekend this coming weekend at Conn (Conn, and Wesleyan), and then the following weekend we're HOME for Homecoming where we'll play Tufts, Bowdoin and Hamilton. Lots of fun to be had, so stay tuned! :)