Panther Profile: Campbell Keller '26

Our very own, very accomplished and versatile Campbell Keller was the feature of the recent Panther Profile.  She talks about her involvement with the HS Volleyball Team and the Middlebury College Musical Theater Club where she's appeared and starred in different productions including Grease, Urinetown, and Mean Girls.  Here's a link to the full video:   Panther Profile - Campbell Keller - Middlebury College  

We're so proud of you, Campbell.  You are the epitome of Division III student-athlete excellence with community outreach and service, scholarship, varsity athletic leadership and on-campus musical theater and other musical contributions on campus.  Talented and balanced...thanks for committing to the full MIDD experience, AND helping us win our 6th Program NESCAC CHAMPIONSHIP.  WE'LL MISS YOU!!  

Molly and Ava are CSC Academic All-District!

CSC Academic All-District:  Both Molly and Ava were tabbed for the CSC Academic All-District Team, which is a very nice honor.  Getting it done on the court AND in the classroom!  CONGRATS!

MCVB Banquet 2025

We recently celebrated our Season with our annual banquet.  We had brunch at Fire & Ice Restaurant before finals week set in!

We celebrated all of the accolades that players had accumulated over the season (highlighted in previous post) as well as the Team 
Awards that we vote on after the season.  

Our team Awards this year were the following:

Panther Pride (Best Teammate)--Lillian

Yellow Jersey (Consistent Effort)--Kinaree

MCVB Spirit (Positive Attitude/Spirit)--Lillian and Molly

Additionally, all freshmen are awarded their Varsity M:

Then, we took class photos:  Seniors, Juniors, and then sophomores: 

Thank you all for a wonderful season and lots of fun memories.  Looking forward to Spring practices and getting updates from the Juniors who will all be abroad!!  Happy Holidays!

Post Season Honors

 It was another successful season here with MCVB, and we have a lot of honors to showcase, both from the NESCAC and the AVCA.  

Molly Harrison was honored with the following awards:

NESCAC 1st Team

AVCA All-Region 1st Team

AVCA All-American (Honorable Mention)

NESCAC All-Academic

Lillian Caldwell had the following awards:

NESCAC All-Sportsmanship

NESCAC All-Academic

The rest of these players were also named to the NESCAC All-Academic Team:

Campbell Bartley                    Devin McCormack

Lauren Baxter                         Gabby Pribisich

Caroline Byrne                        Annabella Rando

Sophie Horn                            Ava Tuccio

Campbell Keller

CONGRATULATIONS to ALL!!  I especially love to see most of our eligible team members receiving All-Academic Honors.  Great work both on the court and in the classroom.  

Season Ends in NESCAC Quarterfinals

MCVB 2025 ended up with a 6-4 Conference record, tied for 5th with Bowdoin.  Since they won the head-to-head, we ended with the 6th seed.  All things being equal, we liked our seed as we were matched up with Williams, who we'd beaten earlier in the year in a 5-set battle.  It also happens to be the shortest trip in Conference, so that was also a bonus.

We traveled down on the Saturday late morning for our 3pm match time.  It was another battle, but we couldn't quite extend it to a fifth set this time, unfortunately.  After losing the first two sets 22-25 behind sub-par hitting %'s, we finally got some offense going to take the 3rd set 25-20 and it was our only set to hit over .200 for the match.

We battled but couldn't seem to string together the points when we needed them.  We had a decent lead in the 4th, but they strung together points when they needed to pull ahead and take the final set 22-25 again.  We've been on the other end of that with other teams and it's an intangible asset to score those important points at the times when you need them to close out a set or a match.  Hats off to them as they outplayed us this time around, but I was proud of our team for battling. 

We'll have Spring practices to continue our work, and we hope our juniors all enjoy their time abroad this Spring!  Thanks for a great season of fun memories, good times, and competitive volleyball.  Despite our 13-12 record, we played probably the toughest schedule we've maybe ever played.  Of our 12 losses, 11 of them qualified for the NCAA tournament, so that's pretty impressive and speaks to the level of competition in our schedule, both in and out of Conference.

Molly Surpasses 1000 Kills

Molly Harrison became the 7th player in MCVB History to surpass 1000 Kills.  She did this on Oct. 31, 2025 within the first few minutes of the Amherst match on senior night.  She only needed 4 kills to go over 1000, and got her 4th kill less than 10 minutes into the match on Halloween night!

She's in very good company on that list, following behind our only MIDD Hall of Fame honoree (Leslie Edwards '00), and a NESCAC ROY (Megan Jarchow '13), a NESCAC ROY/POY (Jane Handel '11), and three  AVCA All-Region honorees (Lexie Fisher '07, Becca Raffel '17, and Isabel Sessions '18).  These are some of the storied names in MCVB offensive history for sure, and Molly has a full season yet to play, which is exciting! 

It's a great honor and we're hoping she adds a lot of kills to the final tally before her time is done here at MIDD!  Congratulations on the nice milestone, Molly!

Senior Day/Weekend Wins

What a capstone weekend for our seniors!  After a very tough schedule, and mostly on the road, we finished off our regular season with two matches at home against Amherst and Hamilton.  Senior Day was designated as Friday night, and all three seniors stepped up! 

 Ava hit .500 with 5 kills, 1 error on 8 swings with 3 blocks to go along with that stat line.  Lillian had a season best 11 kills with only 3 errors on 24 swings for a .333 hitting %.  Campbell had a service ace to go along with 5 digs and 1 kill in the 3 set match.

These three have all been Academic All-NESCAC each year and their respective teams have been honored by the AVCA as Team Academic Award winners every year.  

Congratulations to you three--we'll certainly miss you and hope we get more time to compete with you over the next couple of weeks!!

Alumni Weekend

 

Alumni Weekend 2025 was another success!  It was a smaller turnout this year, but still oh so much fun!!  We LOVE having our former players return to campus and it's always great to see them back on the court for the Alumni Game.  Let me say it, they still got it going on!!  

We faced two tough opponents in Bowdoin and Colby and unfortunately didn't come away with a win this weekend, but we fought hard and had fun catching up with these amazing alums!

Corley, Claire, Lucy, Shea, Britt, Kelly and Jane--thank you so much for coming back and for all of your support of our Program.  MCVB really is a family for LIFE!!  Thanks for everything and good luck with your many adventures!

Birthday Boys

I guess we have fewer player birthdays during the season now, but two of our Coaches had Fall Birthdays so far!!  Assistant Coach Brian's birthday is Sept. 29th, and Our Student Assistant, Spencer had a birthday on Oct. 7th.

They both bring so much to our team, and we all like to share in the celebration of someone's special day...whether it's the singing or the cupcake eating, here's hoping they both had special birthdays!!

Early Season Road Warriors

Our travel schedule this year has been a bit brutal.  We LOVE to play, though, so road or home, we're always ready!!  We had back-to-back non- conference road weekends at Clarkson in NY and then at Scranton in PA.  Fortunately, we had some parents willing to make the trek both places, so we did have some great MIDD fans!  

The Clarkson weekend saw us go 2-1, sweeping both Clarkson and St. Lawrence and dropping a competitive 4 set match with St. John Fisher.

The first picture is Team Dinner at our Scranton Tournament, and the next one is in front of the building that was in the intro of The Office, or Dunder Mifflin.  The team was all pretty pumped about getting to see this!

We played three really tough teams in Salisbury, Cortland and Scranton this weekend.  It was all great experience, but unfortunately, we came away with three losses.  We were competitive and took a set in each match, but couldn't quite come up with the W.  Lots to work on and lots we're doing well, so it should be a fun ride!!

Pre-Season Fun

We are lucky to have time to "acclimatize" during our pre-season now.  It used to be that we jumped in with double sessions and were playing our first match less than a week after we started.  Thanks to some rule changes for health and safety of all athletes, we now have to take things slower, thereby allowing for more time overall before we start competing.  SO, to fill some of that time, we are able to do more team bonding and workshops etc.  

A very popular experience during pre-season is always going to a swimming hole or to the State Park beach.  I just happened to catch up with most of the team at the after-swim creamie!  My personal go-to is a vanilla/choc twist with rainbow sprinkles!  

The pre-season weather was great this year--nice, warm but not hot or humid for the most part, and sunny.  For an indoor sport, it's nice for us to get out and enjoy some of that great weather.

We also did some "speed dating" as a get-to-know-you-better" exercise.  It's fun and especially for the underclassmen, it's a great way to have personal conversations with each of your teammates.  We also met with an alum who works in Counseling at the College as well as meeting with two extraordinary women who work in the Wellness Education office here on campus.  

It's great to have the time to work through our skills without having to try to cram it all into double sessions to get it all in.  It's also better for our bodies, minds and souls.  Being able to do more of this other education and team bonding is also a great way to build on our already strong culture of MCVB.  Our unofficial motto is:  "It's ALL about the TEAM" and what better way to cement that than by really making efforts to get to know each and every one of your teammates and also learning about yourself and general wellness resources available on campus.

 

During pre-season campus is pretty scarce with only the Fall athletes and some resident life staff living on campus.  It's great to focus on practices and getting to know teammates better, so we love it.  This year a couple of the senior captains are living in a house where they hosted a pre-season bonfire night and roasted marshmallows--old fashioned camp fun and a great team bonding event!  Ready to start our season with a Scrimmage at Williams on Aug. 30, our first match on Sept. 3 at Castleton, and then our first weekend tournament up at Clarkson/St. Lawrence on Sept 5-6--ALL before classes even get started on Sept. 8th.  LETS GO MCVB!!

2025 Season Begins With Preseason Family BBQ

 

We start our season as we have for the past couple of decades--with a Team and Family BBQ at my house.  The weather cooperated with us and we had a pretty nice night for our dinner.  My dog Sunny loved all of the attention.  

It's a great opportunity for the new families to start to get to know each other as well as getting the returners' parents together with all of us for a fun family evening!  We also have a new trainer this year, so Phoebe got acquainted with us all over the evening as well.

As we do, we also took pictures of each class to start the new year.  First up are the SENIORS, and the CAPTAINS--Campbell, Ava and Lillian!!

The next pictures are in reverse order, which Juniors (Molly, Gabby, Lauren (w/Sunny), and Sophie--aka Horn.

Then the Sophomores:  Devin, Sophie--aka Fish, Caroline (w/Sunny), Campbell--aka Bart and Annabella--aka AB.

Finally, the new ROOKIES:  Ella, Kinaree (w/sunny), Molly--aka Mac, and Nora.  We have a lot of double names so we need the nicknames so we know who is who....or at least so I know who is who! 

WELCOME MCVB 2025!!!

ALL-AMERICANS--Gabbie & Molly

 

We want to recognize and celebrate our TWO All-Americans this season with Gabbie and Molly, who were quite the dynamic duo!!  Middlebury Volleyball has been in existence since 1994.  We have had quite a few Honorable Mention All-Americans and All-Region honorees, and we had our first All-American in 2021 with Maggie Wise (coincidentally that was Gabbie's first year!), but to have TWO in one year is extraordinary.  

We're so proud of both of these players as they are total TEAM players and helped elevate the level of play all around and guided us to one of our best seasons ever!  This year's team tied for advancing the farthest in the post season getting to the Sweet 16 for only the 2nd time (only other time was 2011). Gabbie leaves the Program with several school records, and is the only player to be named either, let alone BOTH AVCA Rookie of the Year, AND AVCA Player of the Year.  Wonderful bookends to a fabulous career!! Congratulations to both Gabbie and Molly on a momentous year!! 

HUGE NESCAC/AVCA HONORS--Players of the Year

 We had some really great individual honors this year when the post-season awards came around.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, right?  SO PROUD TO BE A PANTHER!!

 Gabbie O'Toole was honored by the AVCA as the Region I Player of the Year!!  Molly was voted the NESCAC Player of the Year!  Annabella was voted the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year! 

These are really great honors, and we're very proud of our whole team, but also really proud of these individuals for garnering these wonderful individual honors.  We talk a lot about the TEAM, and individuals rarely get honors like these without a successful TEAM behind them, so we can ALL celebrate these honors with them.  Well done, TEAM!!

NCAA Run Ends at Sweet 16

We really had to play well and win the NESCAC to even make it into the NCAA's this year.  The new NPI made that process a little more predictable, so we knew what we had to accomplish to get here...and we did it.  When the selection show (which, by the way had a picture of US on it!) put out the bracket, we were headed to Juniata as the 6th seed in that pod.  When we arrived at our hotel on Wednesday, the Smith Coach (from Huntingdon, PA, and Caitlin's sister's coach) had left us 3 dozen delicious cupcakes and even made sure they had blue and white icing for MIDD!!  It was SO NICE of him!!

We faced a tough Salisbury team in the first round.  They'd drawn the 3rd seed based on their NPI, and we knew it would be a tough match.  We came out and played tough right from the beginning and won the first set with a confident 25-24 score.  They bounced right back and took set 2 15-25 and the match was on.  We then just kept the pressure on and behind strong hitting and serving, took the final two sets 25-17 and 25-14. Our OH's had a great match overall, netting 10 and 9 kills with a .207 and a .172 hitting %.  Gabbie was running the offense and attacking at opportune times with 3 kills on 5 attempts, and Molly again led all hitters with 17 kills. We were on a roll and things were really clicking.  We hit .227 and held a 10-4 advantage with service aces, propelling us into the next round against Gettysburg.

We had played Gettysburg the previous year, losing in 5 sets on our opening weekend.  I think we were all pretty excited to get to play them again, and what better place than the NCAA's round of 32.  This time we got off to a good start taking the first two sets, but it was a very tight game all the way.  We were able to pull ahead in both sets and close them out 25-20, and 25-23 before losing another close set in the 3rd 21-25.  In the 4th set, we sort of got on a roll and just dominated the set 25-13.  We once again hit well with a .233 hitting % and Molly again led all players with 23 kills (and only 1 error!)!  Our middles were solid (Ava had 6 kills and 7 blocks vs Gettysburg) in both matches, as they have been all year, and our OH's started really stepping up, which was great to see. With Gabbie O'Toole leading our offense and AB and our Defense serving tough and keeping balls in play, we were just playing our best volleyball at the right time, putting us in a position to challenge the two-time defending National Champions for the Regional Championship and a spot in the Elite 8!

We had a nice dinner with the parents after one of these games, and since there was no Dunkin in the town for me to treat the team to after our WIN, Gabbie texted me from across the restaurant asking if we could go to Dairy Queen instead of Dunks to celebrate our win...and of course, that's exactly what we did!  There was a collective cheer when that table got my affirmative response by text!

Another fun thing that we did was eat in the dining hall at Juniata after our matches for lunch so we could watch the second game to scout both days.  It was so convenient and nice and because of the times we were going, it wasn't even that busy.  The other teams were also doing some of that as well.

Facing off against the defending National Champion was a challenge we were eager to have!  When we first saw that we were in that pod, I knew I wanted the opportunity to play them, preferably in the Sweet 16 round and not before, of course!  They went on to beat us in 3 straight sets and then went on to win their 3rd consecutive National Championship, so it was really fun that we knew what facing them was like firsthand.  

They were tough, needless to say.  They had a very fast offense and hit basically a zero-tempo ball in the middle and we just couldn't catch up to it.  Additionally, because of that, we often only had one blocker up on the pins, which put an extra strain on our defense, which was up for the challenge, but we just couldn't hang in there with them.  We forced an unusual time out to be called by them in the 1st set, which was a minor victory, but after scoring 19 points in that first set, we only mustered 16 and then 12 in the final set.  

I'm incredibly proud of this team and all that we accomplished this season.  We had some great moments (winning 10 matches in a row, winning a NESCAC Championship and making the Sweet 16 in the NCAA's), and some struggles (losing to St. Mikes for the first time in 20 years and then dropping two matches to our final two NESCAC teams who were already out of the Conference Tournament at 1-7.)  But what resilience and grit.  We lost 5 of our last 6 regular season matches and then went down 0-2 in our NESCAC Quarterfinal match against Bowdoin at home before bouncing back to tie for our best overall season in Program History by advancing to the Sweet 16 for only the 2nd time ever!!  We had great leadership from our seniors, and we had a very balanced TEAM with great cohesion and culture, allowing us to persevere and accomplish those goals.

We will have a separate post for all of the post season honors to come, but what a TEAM success story this year!!  SO FUN!!  Well done, MCVB!! 

NESCAC Champs 2024!!

 

What a weekend!!  We knew it was a win or go home for good scenario thanks to our regular season finish, but this team would NOT be denied!!  We swept a tough Wesleyan team for the first time this season and had to come back from quite a deficit in set 2 to do so, but that started a roll that kept going all weekend.  

Caitlin gave us some inspiration before heading to Maine for the weekend.  At our final practice before leaving for the weekend, Caitlin gave the team some motivation and visualization!  She looked up at the Banner already hanging in the gym with our other 5 years of NESCAC Championships and asked the team to look with her...then she said I want you to visualize a 2024 up there!  (Or something like that--it was awesome and obviously set the tone for our mission for the weekend!)

The Colby match was one for the ages.  Colby had a huge crowd and was a fantastic atmosphere for a championship.  The hockey team seemed to be in the front row at center court and the house was rocking, and even though most people weren't cheering for us, it was a wonderful atmosphere to play in!!

We had watched Colby just crush Williams in the opening set the night before, and unfortunately, they seemed to do somewhat the same thing to us, taking the first set 14-25.  We turned the tables in the 2nd and took an 18-7 lead and we cruised into a tie match taking set 2 by a score of 25-16.  The 3rd set was a battle back and forth and we finished strongly to take the final three points and secure a 25-22 win in set 3.  They rebounded and pushed a tight score in the 4th out with a 7-1 spurt in the middle of the set that we couldn't respond to and they forced a 5th set with a 16-25 win in set 4, setting the stage for a 5th set, winner take all short game played only to 15!

The 5th set was back and forth the whole way with neither team having more than a 2 point advantage until a Colby kill put them up 9-12.  We never blinked and after trading a couple of points, Molly got a kill and their setter stepped over the center line to tie up the game at 14-14.  Our defense came up huge in the end of this game as many of the points were long rallies and we seemed to be the team a little more on the offensive, but their defense was also coming up with huge digs.  After an attacking error by them put us up 15-14, the final rally seemed to go on forever.  I seriously think I jumped off the bench at least twice thinking we'd put the final kill down only to have a Colby player barely get under it and keep it alive before Molly went up for a final HIT.  The ball actually came down on our side but the whistle had blown and their blocker was in the net.  Honestly, I think she was exhausted from trying to block Molly several times in the final points and after such a long rally, that final KILL was the topper, propelling us to a NESCAC CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!

VICTORY!!  How sweet it is!!   AND, that meant that we could play another weekend in the NCAA's!!

First Quarterfinal Win for Seniors

This senior class has had an amazing career, making the NCAA tournament 2 of their 3 years so far despite not advancing past the Quarterfinals of the NESCAC Tournament.  (Making it to the NCAA's this year would be 3 of 4 years!)  This year was shaping up to be another great season and there was a time when we thought we could make the NCAA's again even if we didn't win the NESCAC, but those hopes were dashed the final weekend of the season losing to two un-ranked teams and dropping 20 points in the new NPI ranking system.  That drop pretty much took us out of contention for any NCAA bid unless we got the AQ from winning the NESCAC Championship.  

First things first, however, we had to beat Bowdoin...again!  At least we would be home this time, and we hadn't lost in our gym all season.  As a matter of fact, the last time we lost in our gym was last year in the NESCAC Quarterfinals...and we were determined to NOT let that happen again.  As if writing a dramatic saga, we lost the first two sets, as we had done during the season, and we seemed to be teetering on the edge of history repeating itself, for better or for worse (we could lose the Quarterfinal match for the 4th straight year, or we could reverse sweep Bowdoin for a second time this season!)

Fortunately for our Team Story, we reverse swept them and kept our home undefeated streak alive and well!  PEPIN IS OUR HOUSE!!  We were on a mission, and the first team in our way was Bowdoin.  One down, one to go (in keeping with ONE game at a time mentality!)  We were alive and on to the Championships to be hosted by Colby College the following weekend!  And, when the Quarterfinals were finished, Colby (#1) was to play Williams (#6) and MIDD (#2) was to play Wesleyan (#4).  The re-seed the final weekend and since Williams was advancing as the lowest seed, the drew the #4 seed, bumping Wes up to the #3 seed, and playing us.  Since we'd played them twice already, us winning both 3-1, we felt confident but realizing sometimes it's tough to beat the same team 3 times in one season.

5 Game Skid to End Regular Season and Spur Post Season Run

Well, we got to see what #4 in the country looked like when we played MIT.  They were good, and although we didn't think we played our best, they were a very tough opponent and forced us out of what we wanted to do.  We did have some alums and parents of alums there to watch in addition to some of our own parents, and we still had two good teams to play the next day vs Springfield and Babson, both ranked in the top of NE.  To the right are the parents of former standout setter, Katie Kenney Enslin '03, and below is former player and coach, Meg Anderson '14.  We LOVE the support we continue to get from former MCVB families, reinforcing that MCVB really is "family for life!"  THANK YOU!

Unfortunately for us, our woes continued the next day as we lost a tightly contested Springfield match in 5 sets and then lost another tightly contested 3 set sweep by Babson.  Needless to say, it was a disappointing weekend for us as we just were out of sync and couldn't quite put a run together anywhere on the court.  It was an odd sensation after having played so well together for quite a stretch.  Moreover, none of us seemed able to put a finger on just what exactly was going wrong.

Well, we got back to work and still felt like we had a lot of volleyball left to play.  We were still ranked 2nd in both the NESCAC and in the Region and were heading into our final weekend against the two lowest ranking teams in our Conference, which actually doesn't mean all that much because everyone is SO good and the parity among NESCAC teams is tremendous, but there you are.  We had already guaranteed ourselves a home game for the playoffs regardless of the outcome, but of course, we wanted to finish strongly and end with a 9-1 record in Conference for the first time ever!  We had a great week of practice and celebrated Halloween at our final practice before hitting the road.  

As fate would have it, our woes seemed to continue as we went down 0-2 sets to Amherst the first night.  We couldn't seem to get any momentum, and they were fighting and winning the long rallies, it seemed.  Statistically, we had more kills and a higher hitting % (by a little bit), but they out blocked us and also had more service aces and those were two categories that we prided ourselves in all season, so that was disappointing.  Anyway, we came back to force a 5th and deciding set and seemed poised to erase a potentially bad loss but came up short and lost 10-15 in the final.  A bummer for sure, but we were on the road that night toward Hamilton with a chance the very next day to redeem ourselves and finish the regular season on a high note.

Not to be, apparently, as we promptly went down 0-2 sets again, just like the night before.  Again, we came back to win the next two and force a 5th and deciding set.  Against Bowdoin earlier in the season we'd broken a somewhat long streak of not winning 5th sets, and we felt confident that we could overcome anything...we narrowly lost the 2nd set and came back to win the 3rd and 4th sets in somewhat more dominating fashion keeping them in the teens both sets.  I think we felt like "it" was coming back, meaning our confidence and our style of play, so despite losing the first two sets, we felt ready to reverse sweep them for our final regular season win.  As in the night before, we had more kills and a higher hitting %, but got out blocked and had fewer service aces, which we knew was not a good combination. Lillian came through with a big performance with 15 kills and a .289 hitting % and Gabbie was only 1 kill away from a triple double (9 K, 46 As, 19 D), but it wasn't quite enough to stop them from grabbing the final set 13-15.  Needless to say, it was a very disappointing weekend, and we'd need to do some soul searching before hosting a tough Bowdoin team in the NESCAC Quarterfinals at home the following weekend.