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.
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.
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