NESCAC Championship Weekend--Big Win over Amherst

We secured the 5th seed for the NESCAC Championships, and we were excited about our match up.  We were to play Amherst as the #4 seed, and we'd lost to them 0-3 in the regular season.  Our first Amherst match was a bit of a blur for me, as I personally was sicker than I've ever been for a match.  I think I had food poisoning, and was totally out of it.  Plus, half the team had been sick for that match as well, and although we played them on Maggie's birthday, that was possibly the only highlight of that match!  During that first match they hit a .286 compared to our .140, which we knew we could improve upon, among other things!

We were anticipating a great match this time around, and were excited to head to the Tournament, as always!  They main offense came from two very good outsides, and one very good middle, and we felt like we were much more balanced and could score from anywhere, giving us an advantage if we contained those three.  We did have a slight scare as Jane went down with a tweaked ankle in the last 20 minutes of practice Thursday night, but she bounced back the next day and had a monster match, hitting .370 with 13 kills!

Now, all that's really left to say is, WHAT A MATCH!!  It was crazy.  We were in that tiny, upstairs gym at Tufts, with no room around the court, and it was a battle!  We traded sets back and forth with us winning the first 25-17, losing the second 20-25, winning the 3rd 25-16, and then losing the 4th 25-18.  It was starting to feel like whoever was on the left side of the court was going to win, but in the end, we had to really earn the WIN and pulled it out 16-14 in the fifth set--for those superstitious ones, we scored 8 points first, and at 8 points, we switched to the left side (winning side) and went on to pull out the victory!!  We did have to overcome being down match point, but only once.


We jumped  out to an early lead 4-1, and held a couple point advantage the whole set until they tied it 13-13.  At that point, they went up by 1 to have match point.  We had a tremendous rally and some great defensive plays to stay in the rally, but eventually their outside had a hitting error to pull us even at 14-14.  We then went on to win the next two points on a kill by Laney, and then a setting error by their freshman setter to win the match!! 

We had great fan support from our families and fans, so that was much appreciated!!  Jill was able to get some great pics of our players with their families, which was really nice!  I'm sure we didn't quite get everyone featured with a picture, but we got a lot.

Amherst's only match point was a long, long rally, and featured some great digs by our team and was really the key point of that match because they had several decent opportunities to win the match after trailing the entire 4th set up to that point.  We just kept coming up with plays to keep the ball alive, which is something we'd talked about a lot over the season.  "Be smart but aggressive! No gifts--if you make a mistake, no worries, but have it be in an effort of trying to make the smart/aggressive play!"  That's what we did--we made plays, both offensively and defensively and hung in there until we could put the ball away, or they make an error, and they made an error, giving us the match!

We had a fun senior parent picture taken with these families that we've gotten to know so well over the course of their careers.  It's always bittersweet to say good bye to our seniors--it's so exciting to see what's ahead for them, but sad to see them leave our Program!  They'll always be a part of our MCVB Family, just no longer in uniform!  Also, Gigi's family showed up for what turned out to be her last match, which was a surprise for her--I think she may have known her parents were coming, but not her sister!

We hadn't won the Quarterfinal match in a couple of years, so it really felt good to get to play again the next day!!  After a quick dinner, albeit late dinner, we went back to our hotel and got a good night's sleep to prepare for the the Semi-final the next day against the host team, Tufts.  They'd really been playing well, and it seemed as though we'd spent our emotional and physical quotient the night before and we didn't really challenge Tufts all that much, unfortunately!

It was a great team effort on Friday night, and I think we all learned a lot by the match Saturday, so those of us returning know that we need to have a little more in our tanks against a tough foe, and no matter the outcome, we need to be confident and in attack mode, regardless of who we're playing, and what we did or didn't do the night before.  We kept to our pre-game ritual of finding a Dunks for some pep fuel, which is always fun!!  We'll be ready next year, but what a great finish overall.  Our Amherst match was our best match of the season, I think, and we have that upon which to build for the following year.

Halloween, Plus a Great Final Weekend of Regular Season

Plymouth State was our final HOME game of the season, and although they were 29-2 coming into the match, they were not nearly as strong of a team as any of our Conference opponents.  Maggie led the way as our only double digit kill leader with 13, followed by Corley with 8.  Then, all three of our RH's had 3 kills, lead by Beth with a .500 hitting %, while Jane hit .252.  Lucy led the team in Blocks with 4, and Gigi once again led the team in digs with 13.  That started our our final week of the season, and we headed to Williams Friday night and then on to Hamilton on Saturday for our final NESCAC weekend.

Halloween fell on Thursday, and we always have a pre-practice Halloween costume picture for fun!  This year the theme was Mario Cart, or something like that!  The team came through with a great turnout of costumes, which was very fun!  We had candy all week in my bucket outside my office door--I'm never really sure about that being a pre-practice snack, but it's only one week of the year, so we all indulge a bit!

We entered the weekend behind Williams in the standings (they were 5-3, and we were 4-4), but since they had to play both us and Amherst, and we had them and Hamilton, we felt strongly that we could leave the weekend with a 6-4 record and take over 5th place for the tournament.  At least we felt in control of our own destiny, which is always a good spot to be in.

The Williams match proved to be quite a test of wills!  We dominated the first set after an initial period of trading points to take a 20-12 lead.  They fought back, but we took the first set 25-16.  The second set was much closer, but had small runs by both sides.  We led 16-12 and 22-17, but they fought back to 24-23 before we closed out the second set on an attack error by them.  The third set was again a very close, and a back and forth set, but unfortunately, we let a lead of 17-13 and 22-20 get away from us.  We did have 3 match points in that set at 24-23, 25-24, and 26-25, each of the three put there by kills from Laney, but they prevailed to take the final three points and stay alive with a 28-26 set win.  The fourth set was led most of the way by Williams, but we tied it 16-16 and took a short-lived lead to go up 22-19, but they put together a string of points at the end of that set to force a 5th and decisive set.

After trading points to a 7-7 tie, Williams went on a mini run to get up 2 points, followed by trading points again.  We actually missed three serves in a row down the stretch to help put them up 11-14 with 3 match points to fend off!  We got three kills in a row, one each by Maggie, Laney and Corley to tie the game, which was CLUTCH!!  They had another kill to get another match point at 14-15, but two hitting errors on them, followed by a back row attack kill from Maggie sealed the win for us!!  What a match!  It was great composure for us to come back from 11-14, especially since we'd missed those three serves in a row, so I was really proud of the team for gritting this one out!

We all enjoyed our Thai dinner on the bus that night after the marathon 5 set match, which was nice.  We love our Thai food!  Hamilton started out the next day a little bit the same as we went to extra points to win the first set.  We traded points most of the first set, but we had to fight off 3 set points at 23-24, 25-26, and 26-27.  We missed one opportunity at set point at 25-24, but couldn't convert until two kills (Corley and Jaime) surrounding a Hamilton error sealed the set for us. After that, we cruised to the sweep with scores of 25-15, 25-12 to finish off the regular season.

With those two NESCAC victories, we secured the 5th seed for the Tournament, and will play Amherst in the Quarterfinals next weekend!  We're all excited about that match-up as we feel that we can definitely beat Amherst despite losing in straight sets to them much earlier in the season.  We all feel like we're such a different team at this point in the season than we were back in late September, which is a great feeling. 

Great Support for Parents' Weekend!

Senior Night is always a fun night.  We only had two home weekends this year, so it was an easy choice to have our "Parents' Weekend" on senior night also.  Our three seniors have given so much to our Program and we're so grateful for their leadership, competitive drive and spirit!  They will be sorely missed next year.

This was not actually their final home match since we had one more mid-week match at home vs Plymouth State, but it's so much better to celebrate senior night with all the families here that we just decided to do it on the weekend!

First up Friday night we had Bowdoin, and we had a battle with them.  The first set was very even with several tied scores, the last of which was 20-20, but they had a final push and won the first set 20-25.  The second set was more of the same, but we went up 22-18 before a late push by them beat us in extra points for a 24-26 score. We forced extra points in the third set to stay alive with a 26-24 win, again with small swings by each team.  In the 4th set we trailed early, but tied it at 12-12 and took the lead momentarily to go up 15-12, but they tied it again at 16-16 before they went on a final push to go up 20-16 and we couldn't get any closer and eventually fell in the 4th set 19-25.  Jane was ON FIRE, and hit .368 for the match and was our kills leader with 16 kills and only 2 errors on 38 swings.  Corley was also super efficient with 6 kills and no errors on 15 swings for a hitting % of .400!

Again, we felt like we competed hard and had moments of greatness, which is all good experiences to grow from and keep improving.  The next day we took on a strong Tufts team with only ONE loss on the season to date and a National ranking of #14 (the highest a NESCAC team has ever been ranked in the National poll!)


This was when we celebrated Senior Night!  All three seniors were pumped and ready to go as we battled with Tufts.  They got going in the first set and their offense was fast and good, and they jumped out to an early lead and took the first set 15-25.  The second set saw us challenge them more and force the action ourselves as we started to not only pass the ball better, but also get our middles involved and Corley caught fire and they couldn't touch her!  We forced extra points in that second set, but couldn't quite close the deal and lost 24-26.  The final set was more of the same and they got up early 3-8 and we never really challenged them again.

BOWDOIN HIGHLIGHT VIDEO

It's good experience to have, as usual, and we will take what we learned from these matches into practice next week and will become better as a result.  We had a wonderful dinner at Flatbread, as has become our tradition.  The team gave the seniors a memory pillow, which was awesome and we all had a fun night of celebrating team and family!!

October was full of great competition!

October is our most challenging month of competition.  We played our first Nationally ranked Conference opponent in 24th ranked Wesleyan at home over Homecoming and it was quite a test.  The very next weekend, we traveled to MIT to face three of the top NEWMAC teams, one of whom was also Nationally ranked (Babson #17).  Additionally, we played both MIT and Springfield, both of whom were Regionally ranked just ahead of us.

On our way to Boston, we stopped at a great rest area where our "Cali Girls" took this photo.  I'm told that no one from California actually says "Cali", which is why I put it in here!  :)

The first night we faced MIT, and it was a great match.  After going down 0-2, we fought back and took them to a 5th set!  In the final set we didn't quite pull it out, unfortunately, and lost 10-15.  Our team was wearing orange ribbons in honor of Bella's cousin who was diagnosed with a form of childhood Lukemia.  Very sad, but we're all pulling for him to have a full recovery!!  On hand to see our game in Cambridge was recent alum Becca Raffel '18, along with our faithful parent group, spearheaded by our senior parents of Jerry, Dean and Tracy, and the Neals!

After MIT, we stayed in our best hotel of the season, and then came back ready to WIN on Saturday.  First up was Springfield, and we actually dominated the match, which was great to see.  We swept them in three straight, and Maggie had an impressive outing hitting .464 with13 kills, no errors on 28 swings!  Lucy had 3 kills, no errors on 7 swings and 3 service aces.  As a team we hit .252 and had 8 service aces.

Following Springfield, we played Babson, who had just given Tufts their first loss of the season in a 5 set thriller.  We were very competitive with them, which was our goal.  The set scores were: 21-25-22-25, 25-27.  Although we did not prevail, we felt good about our efforts and continue to ahve the drive to improve and will keep working toward the end of the season and our Conference Championships.

MIT MATCH HIGHLIGHTS (turn on sound!)

First HOME NESCAC Weekend was Homecoming!!

October was a very challenging month for us, but that's the way we learn and grow!  During the month we played 3 Nationally ranked teams, and 7 Regionally ranked teams.  We started off with a Conference match with Trinity on Oct. 4, followed by a non-conference, but top 5 regionally ranked opponent, Endicott.

Trinity was an interesting team.  They didn't have a win yet in Conference, but they can hit, so they were very challenging at times.  Our serving proved to be too much for them as their receive struggled and then our offense caught fire, especially Corley!  She hit .733 for the match with 12 kills and only one error on 15 swings.  They really couldn't touch her, which was fun!  Gigi continued her hot streak defensively and lead all players with 23 digs!

The next day we traveled to Endicott, who was ranked 5th in New England and having a great season.  We also stopped for our traditional Dunks fix!  We were excited to play Endicott because, like Clarkson, they would probably end up being a top ranked team in our Region and it's just fun to see where you measure up with other top teams outside of our own Conference.  Although we did not win a set against them, all three sets were very competitive and the last two were 23-25.  It would have been really great to get at least one set, and I think if we had pulled out one of those tight sets, it could have shifted some momentum our way.  We were feeling pretty good about how we were playing and just want to keep focusing on getting better with every game and and every practice opportunity!

SKIDMORE VIDEO HIGHLIGHT LINK (have the sound on!)

Next up we had three HOME matches in a row with Skidmore and then Wesleyan and Conn College over Homecoming weekend.  Skidmore was a great lead-in match for Homecoming weekend as we had our best blocking game to date this year with 10 total blocks.  We also hit .369 as a team, which was our second best hitting game other than St. Mikes.  Everyone got in the game, (except for Laney who was sick), and it was a total team win, which was awesome!  Each person that came off the bench added positively to our outcome, which is exactly what we need to be the team we want to be!  We do most of our work in practice, and we feel like we're a deeper team this year than we've been in the past, and it was great to see that play out in a match also.

The next two matches were opposite extremes of our Conference.  We lost to Wesleyan badly on Friday night, really only competing in the final set (21-25).  It could have been the worst I've ever seen us play in the first two sets.  Only against Clarkson had we not gotten into double digits in points before, and the second set was 8-25.  Fortunately, we battled back to make the 3rd set respectable, and they still had all of their starters in, so it was a minor victory for us at that point.  The highlight of Friday night was seeing recent alums Claire and Isabel at the match!  It was a crazy busy weekend with it being Homecoming and also our first home weekend, so we had a lot of family and friends as well as alums back, so it was a great atmosphere!  Saturday, fortunately was a different story on the court.  We throttled Conn College, who really struggled with receive, bolstered by our 10 service aces!  We also hit .351 for the match, so our offense was just very efficient that Saturday!
 

CONN COLLEGE HIGHLIGHT VIDEO

Following the match, we had our Alumni Event at the Golf Course, which was very nice.  We had a couple of special alums back to help us celebrate 25 Years of MCVB!  Betsy Humphreys McNany ('95) and Julie Moriarty McDonough ('95) were both inaugural members of the Varsity Program, which had it's first year in 1994!  They had been instrumental in forming and running the club team and had advocated for the team to gain Varsity status, which finally happened for their senior year.  These guys were so impressed with our current team and enjoyed watching them, and also re-connecting with the College and our Team/Program!  (Julie actually still had her sweatshirt from that first year, which had "In the beginning..." on the front under the paw print!  Other alums back were Meg Anderson ('14), Katie Fehsenfeld ('06--a basketball alum at MIDD, who came out with her niece who is a current recruit of ours from Indiana--"Fehs" and I had a special bond at the time over being Hoosiers.)

September on the Road...

Wow, time sure flies when you're having fun...and when you're traveling for a month!  We're about to have our October Home weekends, which this year includes both Homecoming and then our Team Parents' Weekend!

However, before we get there, I need to update the first half of the season, spent traveling New England on a big, Premier Bus!  Our first weekend saw us beat two out of Region NY teams in Union and Manhattanville.  We got our money's worth, so to speak, as we went 4 sets with Manhattanville and it took us 5 to beat Union.  That was our opening weekend, and thus we were without our freshmen who were all on their Orientation trips!  After dropping the first two sets to Union, we rallied to come back and win in the 5th set 15-9.  It was great to see the team dig deep and be able to come from behind like that so early in the season.

The following week we had our closest trip of the season, to St. Michael's College just north of Burlington.  That was a pretty quick match, and we got to have takeout from my favorite restaurant--Pho Dang, which is right around the corner from St. Mikes! Although getting dinner there is a highlight for sure, the real highlight of the night was that this was our first match with our Freshmen!  Most of them got their first action of the season and performed well, which was really great to see. Lucy had 4 service aces and Laney hit .500 with 4 kills with only 1 error on 6 attempts along with a service ace.  Kelly ended with 4 assists and 2 digs, and Addie happened to be at the net for most of Lucy's service aces, so the ball barely got back to our side of the net!  Good things to come for these guys!  AND, Kelly's birthday was the next day, so we had to have cupcakes post-practice to celebrate!

That next weekend we went back to NY state to take on a perennial power Clarkson, along with other Liberty League opponents in Potsdam and St. Lawrence.  Clarkson was a tough match, and although we competed in two sets, we lost 0-3. The pace of the game was pretty fast for us at that point in the season, but it was a great experience because we know they'll be a top team in the NY Region and have been very competitive for years now.  Potsdam was not as challenging, ending in a sweep for us, and then St. Lawrence was a battle.  We competed back and forth to a 5 set loss, ending the fifth with a score of 15-12.  Good experience that we took back into practice the next week to continue to get better.

 VIDEO HIGHLIGHT LINK:  Colby-Sawyer (be sure the sound is on because there's fun music with it!)

Our lone HOME match of September was against Colby-Sawyer, which was a great first home match.  We out-powered them and easily swept them in three straight, which was a great lead-in for our first Conference matches coming up that weekend to face Colby and Bates.  Friday night we traveled all the way up to Maine where we battled with Colby but came out with the sweep.  The following day we again battled it out with Bates to a 5 set match that we pulled out after going down 1-2 in sets to win the 4th and 5th sets, with another squeaker in the 5th 15-12, but in our favor this time!  We are still learning and growing and improving, and to the 5 set matches are great experience for our relatively young team who's now 7-2!!

We had two more team birthdays the week we played Amherst--Emma on the 24th, and Maggie's birthday was actually on the Friday we played Amherst!  I'm afraid I didn't get a picture of the wonderful treats Maggie's mom brought us down at Amherst, but we did our post-practice tradition of a little dessert treat for Emma's birthday!


September ended with us heading to Amherst even though it was Fall Family Weekend at MIDD.  Because it was one game only, we went down and back in one day, which worked out well so players could get to hang out with their parents at MIDD if they wanted to.  I was pretty sick, and a handful of the kids were still battling various illnesses and remnants of symptoms, and although we competed hard, we did not prevail down in Hadley, MA that night.

It was a crazy busy month spent mostly on the road, but we'll be home for TWO weekends in October, which will feel great.

MCVB Splits First NESCAC Weekend

We had our first weekend trip with our full team, which was nice.  We headed to Hartford, CT to play Trinity on Friday night and Wesleyan on Saturday afternoon.  We arrived early at Trinity, despite trying to leave at the right time, allowing everyone to stay in class and get lunch beforehand, but it was fun stretching our legs walking around the campus before having to play.  Our only freshman to play this weekend was Chellsa, who started her college debut with a service ace, which was fun to see, and we tested out our 6-2 offense. 

I felt we had a very good first NESCAC match, meaning it was close and we had to stay composed and come from behind in at least one set to pull out a win.  The 2nd set went to extra points before we got the win 27-25, and in the 3rd set, we got out to a large lead, but in typical NESCAC fashion, Trinity stormed back and made the third set a hard fought battle.  We regained our control and pulled out the straight set victory with a 25-20 final set score.  Our hitting % was .309 as Mel, Alice, Isabel, Sarah and Eliana were all over .300!  Here's the link to the Trinity Stats.

The hotel was very nice, and playing at 2pm Saturday allows us a relaxing start to the day after being able to recover and sleep in a bit also.  We found a DD, which is always fun, and we got a short walk in to get there, so that was nice also. 

Wesleyan proved to be a tough contender as we played our first 5 set match.  We're still finding our groove, which looks good at times, and needs polishing at times, which is to be expected this time of year.  Looking at the game metrics, it was a very even match minus one stat:  blocking.  Here are the Wesleyan Stats.  They seemed to have our number a bit, which forced our hitters to find other options--a very good exercise, which we definitely improved upon as the match progressed, but not quite enough to pull out the victory.  As long as we learn from this setback, we'll  keep improving and keep moving forward, which is our daily goal!

We'll continue our quest at improvement this week with a full week of Home Volleyball.  We're back on the court Wednesday for our Home Opener against St. Mikes at 7pm, and again on Friday night at 8pm vs Hamilton, and Saturday at 5pm vs St. Lawrence.  If you're in the area, come on out to see us play all week in Pepin Gymnasium!  Homecoming is Saturday, so there are fun activities all weekend long both in the Gym and all over campus!  Come join in!

Season Ends in NESCAC Quarterfinals

We had a great week of practice leading up to NESCAC's, starting with a CATZ workout on Monday.  Pictured here is our plank-line where we do rock-paper-sissors with the losing team doing a push up, down the line and back.  It's so much fun!  Too bad Lizzy had to sit that one out with a sore knee--it probably would have been one of her favorite practices!


Then, we headed to Boston on Friday, and witnessed our first snow of the season, which was also fun.  Unfortunately, we traveled without Kathryn, who had a fever and stayed on campus to sleep and rode down with Meg, who was coming later due to work.  As usual, we arrived early, as we like to, and had time to walk around and also watch some of the Hamilton vs. Williams match on our court at 5pm.  What a match!  Hamilton took them to 5 games, which was exciting.  Anything can happen in the NESCAC's.  We've been the #7 team and have upset the #2 team before, and it looked as if the improbably upset might just happen...but it didn't. 

Finally, it was our turn to play the 8pm match.  We were on the upper court at Tufts, which I would describe as an intimate court, but it was webcast, and we had announcers and ball runners, so it all worked out great.  We traded points with Bowdoin for much of the first set, and had the scored tied at 15-15 before a 7-0 run took them to a 21-15 lead over us.  We traded points again, but it wasn't enough to overcome the lead, and we dropped the first set 25-18.  I think we were just a little behind with our block timing, but we seemed to catch up to the speed by the end of the first set, which bode well for the 2nd. 

We came out strongly in the 2nd set to take a 6-0 lead behind the strong net play of Melanie and Emily.  Hannah was serving, and Melanie had a kill and two blocks, while Emily had a kill and a block, and Bowdoin had an attack error, and we were just shutting them down--which was a beautiful sight.  Emily only plays one rotation in the front row when Hannah starts out serving, and I thought I saw the big middle from Bowdoin notice that she was in the front, and she ran a slide pretty quickly, and Emily just shut her down!  It was great!  We led the whole set, and the closest they ever got was 2 points at 16-18, but that was it, as we went on another late 7-2 run, and evened the set scores 1-1 with a 25-18 win.

The 3rd set saw Bowdoin get out to a quick lead this time, going up 1-7 behind four errors on our side.  We went on a run of our own to tie it at 9-9 and we literally traded points until it was tied 19-19.  We then both had three point runs back to back to tie the score at 22-22.  Out of a Bowdoin timeout, they scored the next three points on two kills by their big OH, and an error by us to end the set.  On to the fourth. 

We traded the first couple of points of the set, but then we got behind by as many as 6 points, and trailed into the late teens before mounting a courageous comeback to get within 1 at 16-17.  They then had another mini run of their own, as we got down 22-19 before a Bowdoin attack error sent Emily to the service line, down 22-20.  Three straight points later (mostly on their errors), we were up 1, 23-22, but we just couldn't sustain the lead.  Their big OH put down two kills, and then hit the game winner off of our block, and that was it.  Bowdoin played very well, and I think they had to beat us that night, but that's what makes the tournament so much fun.  We knew we'd have to play our best to beat them twice, and although we played well, I don't think we played our best, and that's what it takes to win in November. 

Our statistical leaders were our freshman outsides, Alice and Becca with 11 kills apiece, followed closely by Mel with 9.  Olivia and Lizzy led the team with 16, and 15 digs respectively, while Mel had 5 blocks, and Becca and Piper both had 3.  We did out-block Bowdoin, which was great to see.  Charlotte lead the team with 3 service aces, and passed the ball well all night, and Hannah dished out 33 assists for the match.

Because we played the late match, we were spending the night anyway.  It's always tough to end the season on a loss, but every team that makes the tournament does, except for ONE.  Our seniors led us through a very good season, through some ups and downs with our young squad, and we will miss them very much.  It's always an interesting time as you reflect back on a career for those seniors, and yet look ahead to the future with the underclassmen.  We have a lot of talent returning, which we look forward to, but we'll miss our seniors too. 

We headed back to our hotel to spend the night.  The next morning we slept in, had breakfast, hit the DD next to our hotel, and got on the road back home.  The captains got to have the double room for the first time together all season, and cowie even had a pal with Lizzy's bear, or was it a dog (?)  Another season gone by...so fast!  Once again, we had great support by our many families, both current and past, and we thank you ALL for your great support.  We'll so miss seeing the Reeds and the Underbrinks, but we don't have to say goodbye to the Kolodka's thanks to Emily!  Many of our parents traveled from both near and far for the match, and we had several past families who live in the area there as well to cheer us on.  THANK YOU ALL!! 

Darn that Bowdoin!  (Tufts would go on to beat Bowdoin the next day, and Williams would go on to beat Tufts in the final, but all three teams made the NCAA's, which is great for our Conference as a whole.  At this point, we root for anyone in NESCAC still playing, so, "GO NESCAC!")

Regular Season Finale in Pepin Gym

Our last regular season matches were at home this year, which is always fun!  We played Conn on Friday night, Halloween, and Tufts on Saturday afternoon.  So, we celebrated Senior Night on Friday night.  To start things off on a great note, pun intended, Piper's mom sang the National Anthem.  What a TREAT!  She's absolutely amazing!!  It totally set the perfect tone for us to then go out and beat Conn!  We did our senior appreciation for Piper, Lizzy and Olivia before the match, and then the whole team and parents were going out to Flatbread after the match on Saturday.  We had a ton of parents here for the weekend, which was really fun!

The first set of the Conn match was pretty close through to the middle of the set, and I think we were tied 15-15, and we held a slim lead at 20-18, but then Hannah went back to serve, and we went on to score the next 5 points for the win.  The second set was not as close as we held a 4-5 point lead for most of the set.  Everyone got in on the action as just about everyone scored--Alice, Becca, Piper and Olivia all had at multiple kills in the set, and everyone but Lizzy and Katie recorded at least one kill in the set. The third set started out with Melanie getting two of the first four points, and we never looked back.  We led the entire set, from start to finish.  We got out to an 8-1 lead, and 19-9, and would go on to win 25-13 as Alice sealed the deal on an ace to end the set.

Brian had missed our Halloween dress up before practice the day before, so he came all decked out in his costume for the match, which was great.  He had on flip flops, sunglasses, and even the white sunblock on his nose for his surfer dude outfit!  I didn't notice if the students in the crowd were all dressed up or not, but I'm sure some of them were!

The next day we took on Tufts.  We had secured the 4th seed, no matter what happened, I think, but if we could beat Tufts, and Williams beat Bowdoin, then Williams would host the tournament.  As it turned out, neither of those things happened, so Tufts earned the right to host the tournament after beating us.

They came out very strong in the first set, and really controlled the tempo.  We stayed with them for the first part of that first set, and trailed only by 2 at 7-9, but they quickly went on a 5-1 run to take a lead of 14-8, and never looked back as they took set 1, 25-16.  Set two was more of the same as we just couldn't seem to muster enough offense to get them out of system, and they cruised to a 25-13 win.

The third set we started to figure some things out, which was nice.  We started to get some blocks, and then ran our offense, and that put them out of system, which then turned the tables in our favor.  We were doing good things, and they were making errors, just as we had done the first two sets, and we jumped out to a 10-5 lead.  They fought back and tied it at 13-13, but we pulled ahead again and surged to a 25-20 lead as Becca scored our last two points on kills sandwiched around a kill by her former HS teammate for Tufts.

Now, training 1 set to 2, we were at least back in the game, and competing.  The fourth set was back and forth the whole way.  There were several tied scores, the last of which was 17-17.  Unfortunately, from that point they went on a 8-2 run to finish off the match with a final score of 25-19.  We had a couple of unforced attacking errors, they blocked us a couple of times, the had a couple of kills by Becca's former teammate, and then Haley Hopper rotated to the front, and we'd had some trouble getting touches on her with our block, and scored the final two points on kills that went straight to the floor.

We had such great support from a ton of families, it was so fun, but a win would have been even better.  There will be more to come, however, so our huge group enjoyed a fun evening at Flatbread that night.

We're just hoping we get another shot at them in the tournament.  We'll have to get through Bowdoin first, but that's what the tournament is all about.  It's time to put it all out there on the court, and it's that win or go home time of the year!  It's so exciting--we love it!  We play Bowdoin at 8pm on the second court at Tufts Friday night.  If you're in the Boston area, we'd love to see you there!

Big Weekend at Hall of Fame Tournament

The Hall of Fame Tournament has been a fairly long tradition for us here with MCVB.  The tournament has changed structures over the years, and now it's more of a Classic than a true Tournament as the pairings are all decided beforehand.  This year we faced Brandeis on Friday night at 5pm, and then MIT and Springfield on Saturday.  Although the weekend didn't start out on a good note, it went very well overall!

Friday morning I got a text from Melanie that she still wasn't feeling any better after missing practice the day before, and it became clear that we'd be leaving her behind when we left.  I felt horrible for her, but at least we made sure she made it to the Health Center, and was settled in to just sleep the weekend (and hopefully the illness) away while we were gone.

This was the first time in several years that we got to play the "early" match on Friday.  What that really means for our team is that we get to go out for a real, sit down dinner!  First things first, however, because we needed to beat Brandeis.  They play in a very tough conference (UAA), so we knew that despite their record, they could be a very tough team.  We outplayed them from start to finish (minus the second set...), and it was a fun match.  It was really a Kolodka Sisters' show, statistically speaking.  Emily led the team with 11 kills, hitting .241, along with 3 service aces, 16 digs, and 2 block assists for a complete, balanced game!  Olivia was next with 8 kills and no errors for a .381 hitting %, 7 assists, 1 ace, 9 digs, and a solo block for another well rounded match.  And, Katie led all players with 6 service aces!   Becca, Piper and Gabi were all major contributors to our balanced offensive game with 7, 5, and 4 kills apiece respectively, and Piper and Gabi led our blocking effort with 2 solos by Piper and 3 block assists by Gabi.  Hannah had a match high 30 assists to go along with her two kills, 1 ace, 10 digs, and a block assist for another well-rounded complete game.

We cruised to a quick victory in set one 25-14, only to see what could have started to look like a repeat of Plymouth in the second set as they rebounded, taking us a bit by surprise to take it 21-25.  Fortunately, and with good team play with our serving and passing, our offense took control and finished out the last two sets 25-17, and 25-13 for the win...and on to dinner!

Apparently, they had some power issues at the other location of the tournament that night, so the times got moved back an hour, so we had more time to sleep in, eat breakfast, make our DD stop :) and still get to the gym to watch MIT play Amherst before our match.


We've traditionally had great matches with MIT at this tournament, and this one was definitely another one of those.  I think the longest single set we've ever played has been against MIT at this tournament, and I think it was 33-31 a couple of years ago.  Anyway, we came out strong, serving tough, and digging balls, and blocking well, and took the first game 25-21. The set was capped off with on a 5-0 run with three kills by Becca and two hitting errors by them to end the set in our favor.  The next set saw us get down early, and although we did make a small run at the end, it was too little, too late, and we lost that set 16-25. The third set was more of the same, as we got down early 1-6, and 12-16 before making a run with Olivia serving to get within 1 at 16-17.  We stayed close, but couldn't quite pull it out, and lost 22-25 to go down 1-2 in sets.

The fourth set belonged to us, however, as we got on top early for a 6-1 lead, and 14-4, and even 20-9 before they made a run to narrow the gap to 21-12.  We traded points before Alice ended the set with one of her 14 kills.  In the crucial 5th set, we jumped out to an early lead of 4-1 behind a couple of aces, one by Emily and one by Katie.  They had a few errors to go with a couple of our kills, and we then traded points a bit before Lizzy aced them for an 11-5 lead, forcing a timeout by MIT.  We held a 13-8 lead before they scored by a couple of kills by their big hitter, and we had two errors of our own, to narrow our lead to 13-12.  A Becca kill brought us to match point, which then saw them get one more kill before finishing the match with an MIT attack error, and the WIN for MIDD!!  We finished the match with 22 Block Assists, which was great to see, especially against a good hitting team.  MIT was ranked in the top 6 in the New England Region coming into the weekend, and we felt very good about the win!

Hannah was very steady once again with 43 assists, 12 digs, 2 solo blocks, and one kill.  Becca had another very solid game with a match high 15 kills and three blocks, while Alice had 14 kills and an impressive .355 hitting %.  Emily led the team with 28 digs, followed by Lizzy with 22, and Olivia posted 9 kills, 10 digs, and 3 blocks.

We quickly gathered our stuff, and headed for the bus where our lunch was awaiting, and Rueann was poised to take us straight to Smith for our last match of the day, against another of the Region's powerhouses in 8th ranked Springfield College.  We arrived at Smith to find our court empty, and awaiting us, which was nice because for the last match of the day, we were afraid the court could have been backed up.  We had about 45 minutes on the clock before the start of our match, which was about perfect.

After barely edging them 29-27 in the first set, we jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in sets by taking the second set 25-17 behind some very strong serving and excellent passing.  Our team defense was really clicking, and we were defending, talking and covering the court, and we came up with some big digs and a couple of blocks against some of their powerful hitters, which I think frustrated them,   It also allowed us to run our offense, keeping them from being able to get into theirs.  That only lasted so long, however, and they started to figure us out a bit, and started to pass our serves, which caused us to possibly try a little too hard to get the "tough" serve, and as a result, we had 14 service errors in the match!  Yikes.  They also grossly out-blocked us 16-5, which hurt, and although we played them very tough all around, we couldn't quite come up with enough points to take any of the last three sets for the victory.

All in all, however, I was extremely proud of how we played this weekend.  Gabi stepped up and played great, and I think that's some of the best TEAM volleyball we've played all season, which was really fun to see.  Becca was named to the All-Tournament team, which was a nice honor.  It was really great to see several players step up their games this weekend, so we'll work on keeping that going!

This tournament has often been over Meg's birthday, so we met after the players showered in the "cupcake area" where we once again had treats of various kinds from our wonderful parents.  Jen's parents made cute personalized jersey cookies for the team.  Gabi's parent's brought little goodie bags for everyone, and Eliana's parents had homemade cookies for the bus ride home.  And, Meg's parents not only brought VB SHOES for Gabi, but also brought us more of the oh so delicious apples and dip!  NICE!   Also, the Kolodka's were there, as was Katie's dad, so thank you again for all of your wonderful support.

MIDD Loses Tough One at Home on Meg's Birthday

Plymouth State may have been a little sluggish getting off the bus Wednesday night as we cruised to an easy win in set 1, 25-15 behind some good serving once again, and 12 kills and a .240 hitting %.  However, there was a lot more to come this night...

Set two was much more of a battle, with many tied scores, and lead changes that saw us fall behind in the middle of the set by as many as 5 points.  We battled back and actually took a 4 point lead at 21-17, but couldn't hold off their late run, which saw us lose 8 straight points and the set.  The third set was a nail-biter.  We got off to a rough start going down 2-6, and couldn't even tie it until 17-17.  We finally went up a couple of points, only to see them tie it, and then neither team could quite finish.  There were many great rallies, and many long rallies where no one was hitting the ball hard, we just rolled it over the net to each other, but we eventually pulled out that set 29-27, and thought we were getting at least a little momentum back...

Not so, I guess.  The fourth set was very close again with many tie scores, and lead changes.  We tied it at 19-19, and got behind 20-22 before a service error and a blocked ball ended the set in favor of the "bad guys."  So, on to a fifth set, which was more of the same.  We got down by a couple, we went up by a couple, and we traded points with them to the tune of being tied 13-13 before two errors by us gave them the match.  It was a very tough loss.  We feel like we just didn't maintain our level of intensity and attention to detail with our play.  I'm still looking for some positives in the match, which I know there were some...so I'll try to highlight some of the statistical ones here:

Piper had a pretty good night with 10 kills, a .389 hitting %, and 7 block assists.  Olivia had two service aces, 9 kills, and both she and Hannah had 5 block assists each.  Becca was our main offensive machine with 19 kills, two shy of the match high by the opponent's OH.  Charlotte and Melanie each had 4 block assists as this could very well have been our best blocking night (although, I'm not convinced the stats are totally correct on that front?!)  Charlotte also posted 10 kills, and Lizzy tied their libero for a match high 36 digs, as she was all over the court digging balls.

We're hoping to regroup this weekend.  We certainly didn't give Meg a good birthday win, but hopefully she did something fun today!

MIDD Wins Two NESCAC Matches After Mid-week Loss

After Fall Break, we were a bit slow getting back into the swing of things.  That last day of break, we traveled to Colby-Sawyer for a Tuesday night match against a top-15 ranked Regional opponent.  I won't go into detail about the pre-game snacking specifically, but let's say I don't think we had the proper nutrition in our systems to be at our best.

We were sluggish at best to start out, and although we stayed pretty close with them, they were ahead most of that first set, and even pulled ahead by as many as 6 late in the set.  We did fight back to tie it up at 23, but couldn't quite pull the victory, losing the first set 24-26.  The second set was more of the same, with us trading points for most of the set, and neither team could grab a lead of more than two points, and unfortunately for us, they scored the last two, for a 23-25 second set loss.

We finally rebounded a bit in the third, but despite an early lead, we never totally turned the momentum around, as they fought back in it, and we escaped that set with a 25-20 win.  In this set, we only managed to hit an even 0.00 percentage, but fortunately, they were worse, and thus the win.  It still wasn't quite clicking.  It was very odd.  Everything we did looked hard.  Actually, only one person had what they would consider a good match, and that was Alice.  She hit .333 for the match, which saw us hit a miserable .074.  The only statistical category we were better in was service aces, so needless to say, it was a long evening of volleyball.

However, as we moved on to the weekend, we felt good about what we were doing in practice (after a mental re-boot on Wednesday).  Despite losing a couple of players to illness on Thursday, we still felt ready to take on our NESCAC foes from CT:  Trinity on Friday, and Wesleyan on Saturday.  This was also our DIG PINK NESCAC weekend, so we donned our pink tees for warm-ups, along with Trinity on Friday night.  Fortunately for us, our sick players rebounded well, and we were at full strength to play both Friday night and Saturday.  We arrived so early at Trinity that we had plenty of time to walk around campus, which was kind of fun...

Friday night at Trinity, we battled back and forth to start the set, and even trailed by one at 16-17, but a late 9-1 run bolstered by tough serving finished out the set for a 25-18 win.  The second and third sets would be more of the same as we ended the night with 6 service aces, and a team hitting % of over .300.

Saturday, after Lizzy's dad took me grocery shopping for the team breakfast, and we stopped for our earned DD run, we headed to Wesleyan, looking for our 5th Conference Win.  The first set, Wesleyan was definitely in charge, and they seemed on a mission to get a win from us, making their trip to the playoffs more of a reality.  They cruised past us for a 16-25 first set easy win.  We weren't awful, but they were good, and we did nothing to stop them from being good.  Fortunately, we regrouped well, and turned up the intensity ourselves, and started to control more of the action, staying right with them to a 17-17 tie in the second set before we pulled ahead with a 5-0 run to finish out the set for a 25-20 win.  The third set was fairly close again, but we jumped out to an early lead, and then maintained about a 4-5 point lead the rest of the way to take a 2-1 advantage in sets.  We finished out the match in style leading from the first point on for the clean sweep for the weekend!

We had three players with double digit kills (Olivia with 12, and Becca and Alice with 11), while Hannah continued her NESCAC leading assists per set with over 10 per set.  We had three people with multiple service aces (Hannah with 4, Lizzy and Olivia with 3). Piper hit .500 with 4 kills on only 8 swings, and Lizzy was our lone double-digit leader in digs with 18.  Our bench did a great job of keeping the team motivated, happy and together as always, and we all know that these wins are great TEAM wins!!

We had great alum fan support also, which was really FUN!  We had a former player, and several parents of former players:  Marty and Joann Kenney--Katie Kenny Enslin '03, and Luz Brito Pena '04 came with her husband and son Kevin.  Meg's ('14) parents, Ann and Paul came to see us and she wasn't even with us, AND brought us the awesome apples and dip (!!), and also Angela Jarchow (Megan '14).

Of course, we had fabulous parent support as well, with Piper's parents still on their East Coast tour following MCVB, Jen's parents, Olivia/Emily's parents, along with their trainer and his family, and Katie's parents, and Lizzy's parents.  I think Kathryn's cousin and aunt were also there, along with a friend of Hannah's, and of course, cowie was with us.  SO, we had TREATS for the way home!  :)

MIDD Sweeps Bowdoin and Colby in Big NESCAC Weekend at Home

It took 5 sets, but we beat a very good Bowdoin team again this year!  Friday night saw Bowdoin come into our gym ranked in the top 5 in the Region, and getting votes for the top 25 in the country on the AVCA Poll.  That didn't mean a thing to us as our only goal was to beat them in our quest toward the Conference Tournament. 

The match was basically very close the whole way, except for two lopsided games.  One we ran away with 25-14, and one they ran away with 15-25, but other than that, they were all decided by 2-3 points.  They took the first set after several tie scores, and as late as 17-17, before Bowdoin went on a four point run that we never recovered from. 

Set two was all us.  We never trailed, and after going up 8-6 we went on a 10-0 run and never looked back.  Sometimes that just happens...  Tied 1-1 in games, the third set was a critical one, and it was tight the whole way.   Despite the tightness of the score, we actually seemed to be behind a few points most of the set, and were often playing catch-up, which we consistently did.  We were tied at 1-1, 7-7, and 10-10.  Then, we trailed by a couple of points consistently until we tied it again at 19-19.  Our first lead since getting the first point came at 21-20, and we never gave up that lead.  They tied it at 23-23 on a service ace, but then gave us back the lead on a service error.  Then, they got another kill to even it at 24-24 before Olivia and Becca each had a kill to take the set 26-24!

Unfortunately for us, that game that sometimes just happens, even when teams are well matched, like in the second set that belonged all to us...well, it happened TO us, as pretty much everything they did worked, and we couldn't get a single thing to go our way in the 4th set.  Their big hitter got hot, and we made errors, and well, it wasn't all that pretty as they won 25-15, leading us to a 5th set for the first time this season.

They kept some of their momentum from the 4th set going into the 5th and grabbed an early lead 2-6.  We then put together a few strings of points starting with three, then we both got two points in a row, before we went on another four point run to go up 11-9 before a Bowdoin side out.  We scored three more points to go up 14-10 but Bowdoin finally put a string of their own together to bring the game to 14-13.  Sometimes that last point can be elusive, so we'll need to work on that, but Alice pounded a ball into their block and it went out for the win.  Big win! 

Becca led three of our hitter in double digit kills with 14, followed by Olivia with 12, and Alice with 11.We had 15 Block Assists with Piper having 5, and Melanie getting three to go along with her two Solo Blocks.  Hannah continues to lead the Conference with over 10 assists per set and stayed right on track as she had 45 assists in this 5 set match. Olivia and Katie each had 3 service aces, and Lizzy led all players with 24 digs!  We even had a pretty good fan base for it being Fall Break as I think the football team was still on campus before leaving in the morning for their Williams game.  Members of the D8 sang the National Anthem to get things started, and the crowd was loud and great!

The next day we faced Colby.  We knew they had a good win over Conn under their belts despite losing to Hamilton the night before, and we knew they would be a different challenge for us than Bowdoin.  Their offense is very middle hitter driven, and we felt like we could control that with our blocking and defense, as long as we could get our offense going to keep them from doing whatever they wanted.  As Brian likes to say, "sometimes the best defense is a good offense."

Well, the first set, everything went our way en route to a 25-12 win.  We knew they'd come out with more in the next set, which they did, but we ran away with the sweep with 25-21, and 25-20 set scores.  The second set was a set of strings for both teams, and went back and forth to be tied 21-21 before we scored the final string of points to win 25-21 on two kills from Becca and one from Piper to seal the deal.  The final set was mostly us, but then as we approached the end, they made a final push before Melanie pounded a quick attack to the floor "with authority" (as my mom would have said!) to end the match, and secure our NESCAC sweep of the Maine teams!

Piper again led the blocking with 3 BA, and Becca again led our offense with 14 kills and a .424 hitting %.  Piper had a stellar hitting % of .750 will 6 kills on 8 swings from the middle, while Melanie also hit very well with 5 kills and 1 error on 9 swings.  Our team hitting % was .308 for the match, which was great to see. 

We're now on Fall Break with no classes on Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully we'll get some good rest, catch up on work, and enjoy some fun Fall activities over the weekend since it's absolutely gorgeous right now up here in New England Paradise!

MIDD Cruises Past Skidmore Again

We traveled to Skidmore again on Wednesday night for a mid-week match.  Lizzy was sick, but other than that, we seem to be getting past the bug that's been going around.  We took two vans, one leaving early so some could have two hours pre-match to stretch, heat, roll, etc., and one late van so some could stay in class longer, and arrive just in time to change clothes and warm up.  For the mid week matches, that can really help out academically, so we try to accommodate that whenever possible.

The first set saw us hit almost at our goal of .200 with .196, as we almost tripled their kills 17-6.  Kathryn set the 2nd and third sets, which saw our hitting % rise to .414, and .282 respectively.  Becca led our offense with a match high 13 kills, followed by Olivia with 11, Alice with 10, and Piper with 8.  Emily led our defense as the libero with 12 digs, followed by Becca and Olivia with 10 apiece.  Piper and Alice both had two blocks, and Hannah had a match high 2 aces.  Melanie hit .571, while Alice hit .474 for two great hitting matches, which was fun. 

Our dinner at Chipotle was great.  We've never been to that one before, and we usually just get Subway when we go there, so we had to play a quick prank on Gabi and make her think we'd ordered everyone turkey from Subway so we could get on the road faster.  I don't even really get the joke there on Gabi, but was happy to play along--and we seemed to get the reaction from both Gabi and the team that the captains were looking for.  :)

The straight set win was our second over Skidmore, and now we are prepared to play two more NESCAC schools this weekend at home against Bowdoin tonight, and Colby on Saturday.  GO MIDD!!

MIDD Took on Both Purples Over the Weekend

We had a great match against Amherst on Friday night.  We arrived SO early that we had plenty of time to walk around campus, and enjoy some Fall weather and sunshine before getting ready for our game.  We came out strong played well, and executed our game plan very nicely to take the first game 25-16.  Neither team hit for a good % in that first game, but we felt good about our serving, and our blocking, and they were going for shots around our block and just missing, and we were digging everything else.

The second set was also very competitive, but had strings for both teams.  We got behind early, but fought back in it, but couldn't quite overcome the early deficit.  The third set was a very productive set as both teams hit for a very good %, and was really a set of who was in system.  When we were in system, we looked good, and they weren't doing much to stop us, and vice versa.  The score wasn't really reflective of the closeness of the set as they won 25-16, but it was a competitive game.  In the fourth set, we went back and forth some, but had held a lead for most of the set, and went up 21-17 late, but after a missed serve to break up some momentum, we couldn't quite regain any of that momentum, even enough to stop their final push, and they outscored us 8-1 to end the match in their favor. 

Some highlights for us was our serving as we out aced them, forcing more receiving errors than we gave up.  We felt good about our blocking, despite it not really showing up in the stats column.  We also had great contributions from Becca, who's back in full swing now, I think.  She had 10 kills and hit .194.  Olivia led the team with 13 kills hitting .170, and Piper hit a stellar .579 with 11 kills and NO errors, so those were wonderful individual performances.  Lizzy led the team in digs, but was closely followed by both Emily and Hannah, and those two both led the team in aces with 2 and 3 respectively.  Hannah continues to lead the Conference in assists per set, which is a large feat with the stiff competition in the NESCAC.

It rained pretty much all day on Saturday, but it was an easy trip over to Williams.  Once again we got off to a good start, and played very competitively against them in the first set, and took the second set 26-24 behind some good serving, and ball control, allowing us to run our offense, and stay aggressive, which looked very good at times.  Unfortunately, Williams pretty much dominated the final two sets to take the match.  Becca led our offensive effort with 13 kills and a .333 hitting % to lead the team in both categories, as the team combined for only a .098 hitting %.  Lizzy tied for a match high of 17 digs, again closely followed by Emily with 16, and Hannah with 15.  Once again, we feel like we are doing a lot of positive things, and are looking forward to keeping improving every day, and competing against the rest of the Conference in the weeks to come.

MIDD Goes 2-1 for the Weekend

Friday night we suffered our first NESCAC loss to Hamilton.  While it was a very frustrating loss, we recognize that we are close to being the team we want to be.  The first two sets were both decided by 2 points, and unfortunately, we just couldn't come up with the plays when we needed them.  We then crushed them in set 3 before jumping out to a reasonable lead in the fourth, and were hoping to force a 5th set.  That wasn't to be, due to an 11 point run by Hamilton to seal our fate.  I give them the credit, as they out-played us, but we'd love to have that match over again, similar to our Union match.  That's not the way sports works, but as long as we learn from these losses, and keep moving forward, I'm confident we'll be a better team in the end because of it!

Saturday, we left early for Skidmore, just to try to avoid any early Leaf Peeper traffic on a gorgeous Saturday morning.  It's hard to believe how much some of the trees are changing already.  That's always the indicator of where we are in the season...  Hamilton had been late the night before, and we thought there might be construction traffic also, but we sailed right through, and thus arrived even earlier.  The extra time allowed us to sit outside and have a team meeting in the sunshine, and have some snacks etc. before warming up.

We played St. John Fisher first, and handled them fairly easily.  We're still not hitting a high enough percentage for us to be as good as we can be, but the Kolodka sisters, and Piper paced our offense with 9,9, and 7 kills respectively.  Those three hit well over .200 which is our team goal, but with everyone all together, our hitting % was only .173, so we'll keep working on that.  Becca made her first real appearance after playing the final few points in the last set against Hamilton, so that was good to see!

After pulling out to a small lead in the first set of 13-9, and then 16-11, they fought back into the set and closed it to 21-20.  While this was not what we wanted, the good news was that once up 23-21, we finished the set by scoring the last two points for the win.  The second set was also tied mid way through at 16-16, but again we scored the last three points of the match to win 25-19, and then hit stride and finished the match with a 25-15 score in the third set.

Skidmore was our second match of the day, and we had another convincing win, although the second set was a nail biter!  The good news was that after being close the whole way, and having 11 tie scores, we pulled out the final two points, and the last one a convincing ace by Hannah to seal the deal.  The third set we pulled out to an early lead and never looked back.  After the disappointing loss on Friday, the team bounced back and played well to win both in straight sets on Saturday.  Hannah and Emily were named to the All-Tournament Team for their efforts, so congrats to both of them!  Well done!

We have all week to prepare for Amherst and Williams, so that should be good.  Those will be big Conference games, as always!