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.