Back on Track with Big Wins at NE Challenge and Plymouth State

October Break came at a good point.  We were just coming off our first three losses of the season in the past two weekends and were in the middle of mid-terms, so we all just needed a break.  We played Plymouth State on Tuesday of that break (NO classes Monday or Tuesday), so we left early so we could get out half way and stretch our legs. That stop came at the Quechee Gorge, sometimes referred to as Vermont's Little Grand Canyon.  We got out of the bus, stretched our legs, walked out to the overlook to see the gorge and then Addie led a short conversational exercise with small groups before we got back on the bus.  It was a nice break from the regular grind, and I think gave us collectively a good re-set on our mental outlook and perspective.

Then, we arrived at Plymouth State to face a 19-0 undefeated team and went on to beat them in straight sets, although fairly contested.  Corley led the team in both kills (11) and Blocks (3), while Kelly (3), Ali (2) and Gabbie (2) led the team in Aces and Britt (12) and Kelly (11) led in Digs. 

That next weekend we played in the New England Challenge, which is probably our toughest weekend of the season playing 3 of the top NEWMAC teams in MIT, Babson and Springfield.  We often fight with them for extra at-large bids to the NCAA's so it's a key weekend for us and for NESCAC usually. We opened on Friday night playing at Williams against Springfield and pretty much dominated by sweeping them with set scores of 22, 5, and 23.  The first and third sets were very competitive but we completely shut them down in every way in the 2nd set. We hit .311 for the match compared to their .126, but oddly enough other stats were not that far off, despite the one set where they only scored 5 points.  

Perhaps the most notable thing about Friday was NOT that we dominated a Regionally ranked team, but that we had a mishap with our hotel reservation and they cancelled our rooms at the last minute for not receiving our rooming list on time.  Thus, we had to make last minute accommodations and ended up at the Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort! It was only 15 minutes away, so we were lucky to have found them, but we had an...how can I spin this...an interesting night!  :)  We had 3 pods of rooms with various different bed arrangements like bunk beds, king beds and doubles and pull out couches, but we made it work and enjoyed our "resort" night!

 

After our team breakfast at the Country Store (which actually was great since they had bagel egg sandwiches as well as yogurt and fruit cup options in the store!), we headed back to Williams to take on both MIT and Babson, who were both NCAA teams last year.

Our first match of the day was against MIT, and although we battled them tough, we came up with the 1-3 loss.  The first three sets were very competitive as we both traded scores of 21-25 in each of those sets.  The last set MIT sort of ran away with it hitting .394 to our .029 and won 13-25.  

Here is the Video Highlights from MIT

 Against Babson later that afternoon, we rebounded and took a good Babson team to 5 sets, pulling out the victory after trading sets with them 15-13 in the 5th!  It was a great test of our resiliency as we lost the 4th set badly but came back strong to take a tight, hard fought victory in the 5th.  Corley was fighting some sort of weird illness that came on suddenly when she disappeared in the middle of one of the sets "to go throw up" so when she was due to go back in, we had to sub here out without her being there, which the refs were understanding about.  She returned, put ice on her neck and head, and ended up going back in and played fine, having 13 kills and 3 blocks.  Maggie had a big day with a match-high 20 kills vs Babson and a team high kills vs MIT with 13. Katie led the team in Aces with 3, while both Kelly and Ali had 2 as we continued our strong showing at the service line!

 Here are the Video Highlights from Babson

We felt good about the way we competed and played this weekend and we showed some grit and resiliency, especially against Babson to end the weekend.  We ended up having another Recovery Workout on Sunday and taking Monday off before facing off against our last two NESCAC teams on senior day to decide the ultimate seedings for the Conference Championships.