One of the bonus features of a longer pre-season is that we get to help out the Middlebury HS volleyball team with some practices and skill building. We also partnered with them to raise awareness about mental health and change the stigma to being one of understanding. This partnership with the newly formed Varsity HS team is a very rewarding experience for our team and for their young team as well, so it's a wonderful, shared experience expressing our collective love of the game of volleyball.
We knew Molly could be a hitter, and a good one, but our most pressing need was a practice setter, and she was very good at that also, so we recruited her to be our setter (and hitter), but quickly found out that first weekend that we'd need her to set in practice but HIT in games! She emerged from that first weekend as a dominant hitter for us getting double digit kills in every match except the first where she only played one set. We were playing different OH's all the time trying to find the right combination, and three emerged from the weekend as the main contenders, with Katie leading the way and sophomore Lillian and freshman Lauren coming through in the Cortland match with 11, and 9 kills respectively to cement their places in the running for that spot.
Our first NESCAC match saw us lose somewhat badly to a seasoned Williams team 0-3, but we went on to sweep Amherst the next day and then take down a tough Hamilton squad 3-1 after they had narrowly lost to Williams 2-3 the weekend before. We then went on an 8-1 run with impressive sweeps of Tufts (electric match at Home!!) and Eastern Nazarene and were drawing a great HOME crowd which made for a really fun environment at home!
We went over to Skidmore to play a couple of tough non-conference foes in Clarkson and Rochester and scored a 3-1 win against Clarkson, who is a perennial power in NY. However, we suffered another heart-breaking 2-3 loss to Rochester of the UAA Conference. It was a game of spurts, and although their head coach got tossed in the 4th set (which we went on to win, forcing a deciding 5th set), we couldn't quite finish in the end. We got behind early but staged a significant comeback being down 7-11 and then taking a commanding 14-11 lead, but just couldn't get that final point and lost 14-16. Devastating. Our serving was a huge reason for our success at this point in the season and it seemed to be improving as we went along, which was great to see. Our receive was also a strong suit of ours to aid our offense that was becoming more and more balanced with both Ava and Lexi (and Gabby) emerging as strong forces in the middle and with Molly on the right side and Katie and either Lauren or Lillian on the left, we were becoming a force to contend with.
I want to note, however, that because Molly stormed onto the scene with impressive hitting and shut-down blocking, Steph was relegated to playing fewer minutes as our only lefty RH but was very quietly crushing it every chance she got and went on to hit an impressive .429 for the season to lead the team in hitting %!! Also, this was the first year EVER that I was the ONLY one to dress up for Halloween!! Thanks to Kelly Bevere, I had a "Bull suit" to wear but I couldn't believe that no one else dressed up.
After a nice home stretch, we hit the road for two more NESCAC weekends, going first to Conn and Bowdoin and then right back to Maine the next weekend for Colby and Bates. Conn and Bowdoin was a great weekend. We held off a feisty Conn team in a hard-fought sweep, and then swept Bowdoin the next day with the 2nd set being a 25-7 rout!! Unfortunately, Kelly suffered a concussion during the Bowdoin match, and although she finished that match ended up missing the next three weekends of play. Colby handed us our second loss in Conference and then we swept Bates in a competitive match.
Next up for us was the New England Challenge matches hosted by Williams college. We stayed again at Jiminy Peak Resort, which has become a fun tradition while playing at Williams. We stay in condos, so the configuration of beds and groups is totally different than staying in a hotel. Heading into that weekend all three NEWMAC teams were on a roll with MIT ranking in the top 25 Nationally, and Springfield coming in at 25th Nationally and Babson right behind them. Other than the loss to Colby, we felt like we were playing well and starting really coming together as a team. We beat Springfield in a closely contested 3-1 match and went on the next day to lose a very tight MIT match 0-3 and then beat a good Babson team 3-1. Babson was missing some key players so the match wasn't as tight as it could have been, but they still battled, and our team came through with a big win, nonetheless.
That brings us to our final two NESCAC matches of the year, to determine the final seeding for the tournament. This was also Senior Night, so it was fun to celebrate these four fantastic seniors! Because they'd changed the format this year, we had already secured a home playoff game being in the top 4 regardless of outcome, but there was still some room to move up...Wesleyan was coming in undefeated in Conference and we played them to a very tough 2-3 loss, but we felt good about how we competed and played a very good team. Trinity had been having a great season and was also fighting for a spot in the top 4, but we dashed those hopes with a 3-0 win on Saturday to end the regular season.
So, we finished the regular season 15-7 and earned the #3 Seed for the NESCAC Championship, meaning we'd host a first round game for the first time ever!
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