MIDD Takes Plymouth in 5 Sets

We were still witnessing the devastation from Irene as we made our trip over the mountains to Plymouth on Wednesday afternoon. We attempted to make the over the mountain pass with some minor detours, but those turned out to be very time consuming. After a nice "tour" of some back roads somewhere near Bethel, VT we finally made it to the interstate, but we were desperately short on time. Our detour, which was probably less than 10 miles out of our way took us over 45 minutes! All in all, we arrived at the gym about 5-10 minutes before we wanted to start warming up, when we usually arrive between 45-60 minutes before we want to warm up.

I have to say, however, that the majority of the team was out on the court within about 10 min, which was impressive for our bunch! Very good hustle, and that desire and attitude could have been the extra factor in a very closely contested match that night.

Jane Handel exploded for 21 kills, and she answered the call when we needed a kill several times at key moments. They had a couple of outside hitters that were their main offense, but we put three hitters in double-digit kills to their two. MJ and Amy had 17, and 14 kills respectively, and we out-blocked them 20-12. The most impressive thing about our blocking on the night was that I'd guess that about 80% of our blocks came late in the match?! That's only a guess, but we were not having good success blocking early in the match, and we kept making slight adjustments, and then something clicked in with our blockers, and we just started seeing the hitters better, and getting the block set right where we wanted it, and got the timing down, and started to shut them down, which was great to see.

Maddie ended with 5 blocks, and MJ, Amy and Julia all had 4 blocks. Jane and Caitlin led the floor defense with 22, and 21 digs respectively. Julia had 55 assists, 1 ace, and 17 digs to go along with 4 kills for a very good all-around night.

For the ride home, we just took the safe, late night route through Rutland on Rte. 4 so we wouldn't have to navigate those back road detours at night, in the rain! We have the Hall of Fame Tournament this weekend where we'll face off with other non-Conference Regional Rivals Wellesley, MIT, and Springfield College. Should be fun!