MIDD Downs Colby-Sawyer in 3

It was a dark, and stormy night...oh, wrong beginning.  That's just from my childhood days of reading Snoopy.  It was a dreary afternoon though.  It was rainy, cloudy, and foggy, but it somehow still managed to be gorgeous over the Middlebury Gap!  Breadloaf was exploding with color.  However, when we got over to New London, NH, we were buried in a fog bank.  Stud was driving her own car with Lizzy and Piper, who all had late class, so between that, and Nicki and Charlotte still being out, we counted up before we left and had everyone we were supposed to have at 10 people!  At least we got to spread out in the vans.

Once we got over there, our breathing exercise was a very tight group with only the 10 players, and it seemed odd to have such a small group.  Very shortly after that, however, our other three walked in, which was great.  We got started off in a typical way when we play  over there.  I'd warned the team that every year we go over there, we end up in a long, 5 game battle, so be prepared.  Nicki didn't travel with us because she's still getting over her illness, and Julia was out with an injury from practice the day before, but we felt good going in because of our team depth, as we've said all year will be a major strength.  The first game went to extra points, back and forth with each team having their chances up a set point.  We finally prevailed by a score of 30-28.  MJ was our hot hitter with 7 kills in that first set and only 1 error. 

The second set started out the same, trading points.  By the middle of the set, we started to pull away and built a lead of 15-10, and then 22-11 behind strong serving runs by both Amy and Caitlin.  They had a brief run of their own, but we closed out the set 25-17. 

The third set saw us get off to an early lead of 8-4, only to see the game tied at 16-16.  Maddie ate up her opposing middle getting 3 kills on 5 swings, and still MJ was still on fire getting 3 kills on 4 swings.  It wasn't a big blocking game for us, but both Piper and Amy came up with solo blocks at key times, which was great.  Kathryn was setting a 5-1 tonight in Julia's absence, and Meg was came in back row for Olivia and provided some very steady serve receive.  We outscored them 9-3 down the stretch to take the final set 25-19, and end the match in 3 straight sets.  We were very happy to get out of there in three straight.

The surprise of the night came when we actually had fans--well, two anyway!  Caitlin's mom and sister Molly showed up to cheer us on....AND bring us sandwiches so we could eat quickly and head home.  THANK YOU!!  It's been a busy week for work, and many people are still getting over colds etc. so getting on the road and heading home quickly was wanted by all of us. 

Today, the busy work schedule continued, and a couple people couldn't come at all to practice, and Julia still couldn't practice, and lots of people had a ton of work, so I just gave them the day off.  We'll all hopefully have time to catch up on work, sleep, and whatever else needs catching up on so we're ready to go this weekend.  Next week will be another busy week, so we're hoping to catch our breath right here, and then power through!  Tomorrow night we head over to Hamilton to spend the night before taking the court with them on Saturday morning.  Saturday afternoon we'll face off with SUNY Cortland in a rematch from the NCAA Regional Final from last year, so this will be a fun weekend with a tough Conference foe, and a tough out of Conference foe.  Cortland is currently ranked 12th in the most recent Division III National Rankings.