MIDD Drops Close NESCAC Road Matches

We traveled down to Conn College on Friday night to take on the Camels.  The first game started out fairly well as we edged out to a lead of as many as 8 points at 18-12, but would see that lead slip away half on our errors, and half on their good hits.  Tied at 18-18, we scored the next two points to again take a small lead, but Conn tied the score again at 21 all.  Tied 23-23, we ended that set on an attack error, and a receiving error.

The second set we came charging back, took control from the start, and never looked back to win 25-12.  We seemed to be back on track, however, that was somewhat short lived as we managed to lose both of the next two sets despite being very close right up to about 20 points.  It was a pretty ugly game altogether, actually, as neither team mustered a good hitting %, and both teams were plagued by unforced errors.  MJ and Amy were again our kill leaders, but Gabi came through with the highest hitting % at .571 with 4 kills, no errors on only 7 swings.  There were very few blocks in the game on either side, and both teams combined for 21 service errors, and 20 receiving errors, split almost evenly between the two sides.

As always happens, the day eventually ends, and a new one greets us the next morning, full of new hope and inspiration.  We set out for Tufts early, expecting a lot of traffic due to the Head of the Charles, and ended up arriving even earlier than we normally do.  No worries, we had a short team meeting to help make sure we have the big picture in mind, and to refocus our energies, and remind us why we play this game, and how much fun we all have together.  Anyway, it was a gorgeous Fall morning, and some of us watched the Tufts baseball team playing pickup, and part of a Quidditch match starting up, so it was nice to get some nice outside time before heading in for our match.

The energy on the court seemed alive today, and we were determined to find our fight!  And, fight we did.  We pulled out a very tight first set 26-24.  No one held a lead of more than 3 points the whole set, and it was great to see us fight right to the end.  The second set we got behind early, and while we fought to get back into it, they pulled away with a 5-0 run to end the set 25-15.  The third set was again very close to start out, and with us up 13-10, we traded points to 17-14 and then we rattled off 6 straight points to go up 23-14, and then finished the set on two attack errors by Tufts.

Now, up 2-1, the 4th set was a great battle.  Tufts got ahead by a few points early, and then we'd come back.  They did it again after being tied at 9-9 to go up 14-18 on us.  Again, we fought back into it to tie it up at 19.  We traded points, being down a set point here, and up a match point once that we couldn't quite convert, and they managed to pull out the tight win 25-27 to force a fifth set.  We got off on the wrong foot in the fifth with some errors and poor passing to go down 0-3, but managed to get it back and tie it at 4-4.  Unfortunately, that's where our scoring stalled as they went on a 10-0 run to take a gargantuan lead 14-4.  Two time-outs, a side change at 8-4, and we just couldn't manage to get the sideout.  We had some great swings that just went wide, a couple of good blocks that we just reached a bit for and got tooled etc.  We managed to get two points before a service error ended the match, and our hopes of the upset. We were plagued by errors of all kinds a bit in the last set as we had a few receiving errors, some blocking errors, hitting errors, and service errors.  That's a few too many errors to overcome, I'm afraid.

The good news was the fight was back in us, so we'll get back to work next week on the physical errors, and keep pushing ahead!  We did have several fans in the house, which was very fun.  We had our senior parents there--all 6 of them, actually, plus Meg's grandparent, which was fun.  The Jarchows, the Harts, and the Andersons have been great supporters of ours for so long now, and we thank them for traveling all the time to see us, and support us.  I think Katie's dad was there also, or at least at Conn when he brought us cupcakes!  I hope I didn't leave anyone out because I didn't get a chance to talk with everyone.

The Barretts were back in the stands, and recent grad Caitlin '12 came to sit on the bench and help cheer/support us, while sister Lauren '10 was in the stands with her parents Tim and  Lisa.  It was great to catch up with them, and we even had a bus delivery for old times sake!  Yes, sandwiches for all, AND carmelitas!!  Oh la la.    Katie Kenny Enslin '03 was also there with her husband, two adorable children and both of her parents (who are some of our biggest fans in the Boston area.)  Katie commented on how good the team looked, and how rewarding, but tiring being a parent of two small children can be!  Amen to that one.  Thank goodness mine are getting older!  :)

After the match, the juniors stayed behind to go cheer for our crew team at the Head of the Charles race this weekend, and Lauren and Meg stayed behind to go home/see friends in the area.  We are off of school on Monday and Tuesday, so at least they'll have some time to get caught up on work, and sleep, and hopefully have some extra free time to just enjoy doing whatever!!  We'll get back to work together on Monday and Tuesday before heading over to Plymouth State on Wednesday and then to the Hall of Fame next weekend.

Great Turnout for Fall Family Weekend!

How about this group?  What a gorgeous weekend we had for Fall Family Weekend this year.  I think everyone on the team had at least one parent here, and most had both, plus several siblings also, which was great fun!  All of Brian's family made it, most of mine, Steve and at least two of his girls were there, and the crowd on hand in general was pretty good, especially when we gave them something to cheer about!!  Unfortunately, the volleyball itself was not quite the celebration we'd hoped this year as we faced two very tough opponents in Amherst and Williams.

Amherst was our first opponent on Friday night, and they came out firing on all cylinders, it seemed, and we were just a bit slow out of the gates.  We had trouble getting our offense going, and were thus on the defensive all night, and without good opportunities to pressure them back.  By the third game, however, we seemed to be getting something going as we jumped out to an 8-0 lead.  They would fight back into it, and then we stayed within two points of each other, sometimes us up, sometimes them until we were tied at 20-20.  Amherst then finished out the set on 5 straight points.  I think we were a little amped up with it being Parents Weekend and all, or still trying to adjust to playing without Piper, and Olivia was still coming off the flu, but at any rate, we at least played again right away the next afternoon to get right back up on the horse, so to speak.

Saturday afternoon, we faced the only previously unbeaten team in NESCAC in Williams, and they proved to be a very tough opponent indeed.  The first set we were horribly shocked, I think as we only scored 12 points.  We hung in there for a while in the second set, but they had strings of multiple points in a row when we were only getting one or two, it seemed, to keep us constantly trailing and playing catch-up, and we just couldn't muster a counter attack to get back in it.  The final game was competitive as well, with some great rallies, long rallies, and scrappy play on both sides of the net, but again, we seemed to come out on the short end of the stick as the second purple team blanked us in as many days. 

Some highlights of the weekend, however, were of course, all the families there to cheer us on!  In addition to the families, we had a guest coach on our bench in Sarah Studwell '13, and Nicki '13.5 was in the stands to cheer us on, in addition to the Beans--minus Whit '10, who apparently was studying for Grad School finals.  Not only did she miss seeing us, but also missed her little brother who's staring on the men's soccer team this year as a freshman, and they had a great weekend winning two games, putting them in second place NESCAC right now.

MJ and Amy led the team in kills with 11, and 10 respectively on Friday night, however, our team hitting % was much lower than our goal of .200, so we're working on that!  Additionally, Lizzy made her debut at playing libero on Saturday, Olivia had a stellar hitting % against Williams hitting .400, Amy again led the team in kills with 12 on Saturday, and Gabi and Kathryn led the team with two blocks each on Saturday.  We actually held a slight advantage over Williams in the blocking category, which was great to see. 

The whole team (I think?!) went out to Flatbread for dinner on Saturday, which had to be a lot of fun.  I went home and just hung out with my family for a little down-time since we'll be on the road for the next two weekends.

I'm not sure what everyone had planned for Sunday, but I took my two youngest kids for a hike since it was so gorgeous!   Fall in VT is surely beautiful, and we were very happy for all the families that traveled here this weekend that Fall Family Weekend turned out so beautiful!

Now, we'll have all week to prepare for Conn and Tufts with no mid-week matches, which will be nice.  Then, the following week is Oct. Break, and then we're off to Hall of Fame before having our last NESCAC home stand of the season on Nov. 1-2.  Wow, how time flies, it seems!  We're hoping to regroup a bit this week to be ready to get back in a groove next weekend.

Catching Up on Last Week, and Heading into Fall Family Weekend

We had a busy weekend last week, and I've been slow to catch up.  We dropped our first match of the season, and first Conference match to a feisty Wesleyan team down there last Friday night.  We came out a little flat, and traded points with them for a good part of the first set, which we had done several games already this year, but instead of finishing strong, and pulling through, we just couldn't quite muster the offense we needed at the crucial times, in large part due to our lack of defense.  The second set we basically served them off the court, and completely dominated the set, but went back to our wayward ways for the next two sets.  We dug ourselves holes, and then tried to climb out, or built a small lead, only to see it evaporate away.  We've moved on...

The next day we took on Trinity, and controlled the tempo more how we wanted, and came away with a three set victory, and seemed to have bounced back to our stride.  We added another match to that Conference Weekend, so we played Keene State right after Trinity, and changing gears seemed a little difficult for us as we dropped the first set to them before coming back strongly to win the next three sets for a 2-0 day Saturday.

MJ was named Co-Player of the Week for NESCAC for her efforts over the week which included stats such as averaging 5 kills/set, 2.14 digs/set, and hitting .365 for the week.

Last night we took on Skidmore here in Pepin, and handled them quickly and efficiently for the first two sets.  We seemed to take a mental break, or we had a slight let-down in intensity, and as our defense faltered a bit, our offense seemed to leave, and we ended up dropping the third set to them.  We bounced back in the last set to dominate again, but not quite as emphatically as we had in the first two sets after Piper had to sit down with an injury.  Olivia was already out with the flu, but Hannah had stepped in nicely to play that role, and then Gabi stepped up to play in Piper's rotation.  We've talked since the first day of practice about our team depth, and how important that is, not just for competitive practices, but in case the need arises to use that depth.  We'll face that challenge now head on as we take on Amherst and Williams at home this weekend!

It's Fall Family Weekend, and I think every single player has at least one parent coming, and several have multiple family members coming, so it should be a very exciting weekend!  We're anxious to take on these two Conference rivals, and happy to be home to do so.  We should really see where we stand this weekend, and we're looking forward to the fun of the challenge!

Vermont Fall...

I just thought I'd share some recent photos from this Fall.  Fall is such a gorgeous time here, and it's been a spectacular one so far. 

These aren't artistic photographs, but are scenes from pre-season through now, and the real colors are yet to come!  Most are from near campus, but there are a couple from the top of Snake Mountain, a couple from the golf course, a couple from out by my house, some fly-fishermen in Otter Creek right downtown, and a couple of the last ones are from Fort Ticonderoga when they did a Revolutionary War Re-enactment a couple weekends ago.  Happy Fall!!

Mid-week Antics at Plattsburgh

Last night was our first mid-week away match, and traveling to Plattsburgh up the Northway was a gorgeous ride.  The sun was shining, the leaves were turning, and the Lake was beautiful.  We discovered on the trip that none of the current players had ever been up to Plattsburgh.  We used to play them every year, or at least scrimmage them, but I guess it's been several years now since we had played them.  They proved to be a very solid out of Conference/Region opponent as we went into extra points in the first set to pull out the win.  The second set was more of the same up til 12-12 and then we ran off 8 straight points to take a 20-12 lead that was too much to overcome for the Cardinals.  The third set was never tied after 9-9, and we went on a similar run to get up 20-12 again, but this time they fought back into the game and went on two separate 4-5 point runs to bring the score to 22-19.  They held us off on our first match point, but then a kill by Melanie put the game and match away 25-22. 

Our outside hitters had their way over the smaller right sides of Plattsburgh with 20 and 17 kills respectively by MJ and Amy.  Amy and Lauren led the team in digs with 13, and 11, and Piper led the team in blocks with 2.  Kathryn came home with 43 assists in only three sets, which was impressive.  We hit our goals for hitting %, receive rating, and RE ratio, so that was good.  We now have two days to practice before heading to CT for our next Conference Weekend at Wesleyan and Trinity.  The picture I have here is of some late-night mid-week antics at Subway last night after the match.  I think Kathryn started it, and I'm not even sure I can explain it, but they said it was "for the Blog!"  :)

Busy Week a Success for Panthers

We had a very busy week with home matches on Tuesday and Thursday, and a Tri-match at Hamilton on Saturday.  First we played a tough Colby-Sawyer team on Tuesday, and came away with a 3-1 win which saw MJ come alive with 17 kills, and 9, 8, and 6 respectively from Amy, Piper, and Olivia.  Kathryn led the team in digs, followed by Lauren, and Melanie continued her dominance at the net leading the team in blocks with 3 solos and 4 block assists.


We had a couple of our biggest fans there to cheer us on, and they're pictured here with the team.  Lizzy and Kathryn work with these local athletes with Special Olympics, and they're donning our old jerseys to show their support for our team!  You guys look great!!

The next match was a bit lopsided, as Southern Vermont is in a rebuilding stage this year with only one new freshman on a team that graduated some powerhouse hitters from their NCAA team last year.  We out-sized them by quite a bit, and everyone saw some good action Thursday night in Pepin Gym.  Meg led the team offensively with 7 kills and no errors, while 9 other players had at least 3 kills each.  Lizzy led the team defensively with 11 digs, followed by 9 by Hannah, who set 2 of the games.

On Saturday, we traveled to Hamilton for our Conference match with our travel partner Hamilton, and picked up an extra match with Union while we were over there, which was great.  Hamilton is a young team who just dug everything we seemed to hit at them.  They are big, and blocked well, but in the end, we were the much more consistent team.  We only ended up with 8 more kills than they did, but we had more digs, blocks and aces, and just did what we needed to do to finish out each set.  It wasn't a run away, however, as the first set was tied at 15-15 before we finished out the set with 2 blocks, 3 kills, and a couple of attacking errors by them for a final score of 25-17.

We mostly dominated the 2nd set to take it 25-16, and had a solid lead most of the 3rd set leading by as many as 7 or 8 early on.  They closed to within 4 at 19-15, but they actually ended that set with several errors on top of a couple of kills by us to win the final set of the match 25-17.

Union proved to be our biggest competition so far this season (other than our scrimmage with St. Mikes) as we traded points much of the first set before pulling ahead late to take the first set 25-19.  In the second set, we only had the lead twice by one point each time at 4-3, and again at 13-12 until we would come back to tie it at 24-24.  We went down set point twice before we would take the lead for the last time at 26-25, and finished to take a 2-0 lead in sets.  The third set was more of the same, being down early, and tying it up only twice at 7-7, and 16-16, but we couldn't pull it out that time, and lost that set 22-25.  The final set was another back and forth one, although this time it was us who would go ahead each time before they tied it up. We pulled ahead 18-13, but they fought back to pull within 2 at 23-21.  We then finished out the match with kills by Olivia and MJ with a stuff block by them in between for a final set score of 25-22.

We are back in action at Plattsburgh on Tuesday night, and then down at Wesleyan and Trinity over the weekend.  We are hoping to stay healthy now that the bug has seeped through most of the team, and campus by now!

MIDD Wins NESCAC and Home Opener vs. Colby

Our home opener this year was also our NESCAC opener, and it was nice to be home.  We had a good crowd for a Saturday afternoon.  Most of our other Fall Teams were up at Bowdoin, but I think Rugby was home, and it was a very nice Fall afternoon, so we were happy to have the crowd to cheer us on--thank you Fans!

We didn't feel like we were as sharp as we'd like to be to open Conference play, but we did what we needed to do to sweep a feisty Colby team that just seemed to dig everything.  We had long rallies, and some great back and forth, but we managed to come away with a three set sweep.  Our blocking was a little better than the stats indicated, I thought, but Colby covered their hitters well, and actually kept several blocked balls in play, so I felt OK about our blocking overall.   

Amy Hart was our undeniable offensive leader with a whopping 17 kills and only 1 error to hit .485 for a fabulous day.  Olivia was next in offensive prowess with 9 kills, while MJ, Piper and Melanie all had 4 kills apiece.  Melanie hit .800 with 4 kills and no errors on 5 swings, so I'd say that's a great start for the freshman in her home debut!

Kathryn continued her dominance dishing out the ball with 30 assists on the day, and Lauren paced the defense with 14 digs, followed closely by Amy with 13, and Hannah with 11.  Katie and MJ each had a couple of serving runs which either brought us back into the game from a deficit, or launched us ahead at key moments, so that was good to see.

Colby proved to be a tough, gritty opponent and gave us quite a bit to handle, despite the three set sweep as the individual sets were mostly closer than the score indicated.  We came up with plays when we needed them, and also had some streaks to finish out the sets strong, which was also good to see this early in the season.

We play at home two more times this coming week, on Tuesday against Colby-Sawyer, and again on Thursday against So. VT before heading to Hamilton next weekend for our second Conference Weekend.