MIDD Splits 1st Conference Weekend

This was our first road trip with our full team, since we had to leave the freshmen behind our first weekend, so that was fun for us all.  The trip started off on a good note when we met Ernesto (one of our favorite bus drivers!) in the parking lot!  Ernesto was with us for NESCAC's last year, and he's so much fun.  On the way, we stopped at Panera to get a pre-game dinner for the ride down, and we had hoped to arrive early enough to walk around a little before having to get ready for the game, but some traffic slowed us up a bit, but we didn't have to rush, which was good.  It's always nice to stretch your legs and get some fresh air if time allows on road trips. 

We started our first NESCAC weekend with a tough serving team in Wesleyan, and each game was decided by 2 points, two of which went to extra points!  We displayed some mental toughness not only in overcoming deficits and pulling out very tight games, but in not letting the crowd get to us either.  They had a good fan base, and they were yelling all kinds of things when we went back to serve, but everyone showed a lot of poise to not letting it get to them.  A loud gym is a great venue in which to play, however, so despite some of the things being yelled, it was a good atmosphere for a match. We had quite a following of our own as our parent group was quite large!  Thanks parents!

We showed some early season grit by managing to pull out all three games.  We built leads and blew them, and also overcame quite a deficit to rally ahead for the win.   The first game was very tight early on, but we went on a run of 6-7 points, and looked like we might win decisively before they went on their own run to tie it up.  We traded a few points then before we finally scored the last two points on an ace by Julia and a kill by Meg to win 27-25.  We raced ahead 20-13 in game 2 only to see them pull to within 1 pt at 24-23 before we scored again to win that game by two points. Down 17-11 in the 3rd game, we inched back to tie it at 23-23.  We then traded points several times before pulling ahead for the win with the final two points by Amy with a kill followed by an ace for the 29-27 win.  That was a great way to start our weekend.  We weren't in tip top form, but Meg Anderson and Amy Hart led our offense with 10 kills apiece, while Piper led with 4 blocks, and Caitlin had 14 digs.  Both Amy and Julia served very well for us, getting 4, and 6 aces respectively.  Sarah Studwell played great defense and was very solid on serve receive as well.  That, combined with Maddie's solid hitting and blocking, and I'd say our four seniors had a very good opening Conference Match!

We had a very nice, although somewhat noisy stay at the Courtyard Marriott, where unfortunately there were TWO weddings staying there with us.  There was a Price-Rite across the street, however, so we enjoyed a "grocery store breakfast" the next morning after getting to sleep in, which was a nice luxury.  We then traveled on to Connecticut College to face the Camels who had lost the previous night to Williams 1-3.  The gym was loud, and dusty as it usually is, but what a match we had in there.

We once again had a very tight first game, which we pulled out in extra points, and it seemed as though every NESCAC game we played this year was destined to be decided by 2 points.  In the second game we looked like we'd found our groove by pulling out to a 19-11 lead before seeing that lead slip away, and this time, we ended up losing by two points behind a string of hitting and receiving errors.  Not to take anything away from Conn, who I think played very well.  They served very tough, and had a very balanced offensive attack, which was quite a switch after losing their go-to hitter to graduation last year. 

The third and fourth games were more decisive with Conn winning the 3rd by 7 points, and us winning the 4th by 6 points to force a 5th set.  There was no lead more than 2 points in that final game, as both teams just traded points and neither could get a run going.  Our receive struggled again, despite rearranging our lineup a few times, and match point was won on a service ace by them.  It's very tough to lose that way, but as long as we make sure to learn from this, and move forward, we hopefully won't have this loss haunt us.  I think the parity in Conference this year will be even tighter than it has been the last few years.  Everyone is good enough that they'll force you into some mistakes, so you have to try to minimize your own mistakes, and capitalize on those of your opponents, which is what we'll work on moving forward. 

Amy and MJ had big hitting nights for us with 18 and 17 kills, but we had very solid contributions from many others as well.  Piper, Meg and Olivia each had around 7 kills, and Piper and Maddie had 5 and 4 blocks.  We didn't get as many aces as we have been getting with our serves, and I think that was mostly due to their new libero, who we seemed to be serving to quite a bit.  Julia had over 50 assists and Caitlin had over 30 digs for very strong games.  Lauren Alper made her debut in action coming in to serve for Piper, and she did a nice job with that role, so that was good to see.

We have all week to rejuvenate and prepare before heading back down to CT to the US Coast Guard Academy next weekend to face a very good USCGA team and two other teams in a tournament.  We'll look forward to some good practice time leading into that, but it'll be nice to get back on the court in uniform as well and see what progress we can make as a team every time we step onto the court.

MIDD Wins Home Opener

It's always fun to play at home.  Mid-week, we didn't draw a huge crowd, but some of the "faithful" fans were certainly in the house!  We weren't really clicking on all cylinders, but we kept progressing as the night went on, it seemed.  After dropping the first set, which had been tight the whole way, we then went on to win the next three sets.  Meg Anderson came in and got fired up and that helped give us a spark both emotionally and physically.

Amy Hart was again our offensive leader with 13 kills, with both Maddie and Piper having very solid games in the middle for us, both offensively and defensively.  Piper hit .500 for the night with 7 kills and no errors on 14 swings.  Our blocking struggled early on, but we ended up out-blocking Union 15-7, which was huge.  Once again, Caitlin and Julia led the team in digs with 15, and 19 respectively.

The second and fourth games were very decisive victories for us, and the 3rd game was more of a tight battle, back and forth until we built a lead at 16-12.  We then let them back in with four straight points by them to tie it at 16.  Then we traded points again until we build a two point lead at 22-20, and never gave up that small cushion.

The last set we were in control again, even though we never felt like we totally got our offense really clicking.  We played a couple of different lineups again, and got very solid contributions from a lot of people, we just need to put it all together and it could get really fun.

We're back on the road again this weekend when we travel to Wesleyan on Friday night, and then on to Conn on Saturday afternoon.  It's opening weekend for Conference play, which is always exciting!

Season Opens 3-1 at Endicott Invitational

It was a successful weekend for MCVB down at the Ocean-side campus of Endicott College.  After we wound our big bus through the small, residential streets of Beverly, MA, we finally made it to the campus in plenty of time to prepare.  I think we were the first team to arrive, including Endicott themselves, however, I think we may have been the only team playing that weekend that hadn't already started classes!

We came out of the gates ready to go and really gave U Mass Boston quite a run for their money in the first two games.  Unfortunately, we gave up early leads (and large ones) in both of the first two games before falling badly in the 3rd and losing our first real match of the season 0-3.  The good news was that we had a balanced attack, and had contributions from a lot of people.  Our juniors led the scoring attack with 9 kills, 7 kills, and 5 kills respectively from MJ, Amy, and Meg.  Meg also hit a team high .309, and added 2 service aces, while Caitlin led the team with 22 digs, and Julia dished out 25 assists and 12 digs.  We jumped out to a 12-5 lead early in the first, but they ended up tying it up at 15's before we traded points for a while.  We were still up 22-20, and 23-22, but they closed out the first set with three straight unanswered points. 

The second set was exactly the same as we again jumped out to an 8-2 lead before getting tied up at 14-14.  We led at 19-15, and tied it up at 20 before getting down 20-23 and then staging a comeback of our own.  We tied it at 23, had a game point, but didn't convert, and then lost two quick points to lose that game.   We are hoping to take what we learned in that game forward with us so that hopefully it won't happen like that again!  We lost the 3rd set as U Mass got their fast offense connecting more, and we'd lost some of our umph, I'm afraid, which you just can't do against a team like UMass.

In the next match against Endicott, we struggled to get much offense going in the first two sets, and after being up game points, and down game points, we ended up losing the first set 24-26.  The second was very tight back and forth again, but we could't pull that out either, and got down 0-2.  We had a long 5 game match last year also, so we were hoping for the long evening once we'd gotten behind by two sets.  We fought back and moved people around and came up with a nice comeback win to take the match in the 5th set.  You never want to go down 0-2, but it's also nice to have the experience of getting down, and coming all the way back to win a match like that, so that was fun.  Olivia saw action for the first time, and had the game winning point with a solo stuff block that sent the ball straight back into the ground for a decisive match point with style, so that was fun!  Amy lit the house on fire with 18 kills, while Maddie had 11 kills, and 5 blocks!  Our steady eddy senior duo of Julia and Caitlin again led the team with 57 assists, and 27 digs respectively.  Well done, guys.

The next day saw more lineup switching as we swapped Meg and Stud front row and back row, and both played their roles very well!  We have depth on our team this year like we haven't had maybe ever in the OH position especially, which should give us quite a bit of flexibility with lineup options.  We beat Plymouth handily in the first two games, then lost a close one as we may have gotten a tad complacent (?), but we came back in the 4th to win decisively again.  We were serving very well, and their receive struggled with that.  Amy again paced the team with 16 kills, 5 assists, and 5 aces, while MJ had 10 kills.  Julia had 19 digs and 41 assists, Piper came up with 7 blocks, and Caitlin had 13 digs.  We'll see them again later in Oct. on our home court in Pepin. 

The Tournament ended with us playing an out of Region team in Susquehanna University.  We'd watched them play Williams, and we felt that we had a good game plan going into the match.  Williams had been successful tipping against their defense, so we tried to get our hitters to do that, somewhat reluctantly.  On the sideline, we could all plainly see that even if you didn't tip all that well, you could still get balls to go down in the middle of the court, but we kept trying to pound our way through their block anyway.  We pulled out a close one in the first, 26-24, and then held leads most of the way in the next two to win 25-18, and 25-20 to close out our first weekend at 3-1.  Amy was honored for her efforts on the weekend by being named to the All-Tournament Team, so congrats to Amy and the whole team for a great season opening weekend.

We missed our freshmen, who stayed at home to register for classes and finish up with Freshmen Orientation, so we're looking forward to having them back with us for good now that classes start tomorrow!  We're back in action on Tuesday night at home in Pepin for our Home Opener!

Pre-season 2012!!

I'm a little late in updating this, but preseason has gone, and is going well!  We started our year with a BBQ at my house on the 29th of August, and tomorrow (Sept. 6th) is the last day of official preseason practice.   Many parents were able to join us for our BBQ, which was fun, and it's always a fun night having all the players meet, or re-meet since the only time they would have met would have been on a recruiting visit.  We had a lot of food with chicken and pork on the grill, pasta salad, fruit salad, and grilled veggies from Greg's Meat Market, and a wonderful farmer's market salad from the Andersons.  The team did a short interview process with each other as a means of getting to know one another better.  Brian and Sylvie brought their girls, who get along very well with my kids, but don't get to spend much time together because of living in different school districts, and Rob was a very willing grill master, which was great.  Only Max was left out, and with so many "girls" around, he was hiding out on the computer, or in the playroom with Brian's wife Sylvie showing her all of his LEGOs.

With days of double practices looming ahead of us, after we ate, we separated so the players could continue moving into their rooms, and get a good night's sleep before our Fitness Test.  All went well the next day, and I was impressed with our overall Testing results, which was great.

In the middle of our double session days that weekend, I gave them an afternoon off and the Captains took the team on a gorgeous local hike!  We may have led all the underclassmen to believe that we were doing an outdoor fitness run....but it was a great day to take advantage of the late summer weather, and everyone was thrilled to find out it was really just for FUN!  Two days later, we'd picked the final roster, and had a scrimmage with St. Mikes, right here in Pepin Gym!  It was a very relaxed feel with the bleachers still shoved in, and virtually no one on campus (although the Freshmen were all arriving that day!).  We did have on uniforms, and had officials, and warm-up music, so it was official enough to give us the feel we were looking for, but scrimmages are great to try out all kinds of combinations, and make changes (and mistakes, like putting the wrong person on the lineup sheet, and not having to waste a sub to change it!) and just roll with it.

It was a successful night on all accounts, I think.  We were a bit unorganized with our warm-up, since we'd only practiced it once earlier that day, but that's part of the reason you have preseason scrimmages.  The freshmen arrived a tad late due to Orientation responsibilities, and they had to leave early, but we played them all for the 2nd game, and they did a great job, winning against St. Mikes younger players, so that was a good start for them, I'd say!  They all ran off right after that set to get to their respective Hall Meetings on time.

We played 4 games, and did not count it as a match, but we won all four individual games, which was good to see.  They were all relatively close, and we showed some good early-season grit by not dropping any of those sets.  Now, we're preparing to play our first tournament down at Endicott this weekend, and none of our freshmen are allowed to come with us.  They'll be knee deep in Orientation Activities, and actually will be registering for classes on Saturday while we're playing Susquehanna.  We'll miss them terribly, but after all, an education IS why they came to MIDD!  :)

Tonight the team cooked their own dinner after going to the local farmer's market before practice today.  I've not yet heard how it all came out, but they looked pretty happy about it!  A good, local feast of fresh farmer's market goods is hard to beat, especially when you've prepared it all yourselves.  Plus, the house still looks very clean!

Keep checking in as the game write-ups will start very soon...

Christine Knox '99 Playing Beach Semi-professionally

I'm not sure why I never got this in the blog, and now it's somewhat outdated, but cool nonetheless, so I had to add it in here!  I caught up with Christine Knox '99 over email a couple years ago, which was great!  She's an attorney who works on Long Island practicing estate planning and administration.  She was also in school part time getting a masters.  Still going strong both academically and athletically, and finding time to play some serious volleyball.  

We had lost touch for a few years there, and she got back in touch with me when she was planning to come up for Homecoming, but were out of town that weekend.  She's still playing a ton of volleyball, and was playing semi-professionally on the beach, which was fantastic news to hear!  She mentioned that she and her partner had done very well over the summer ('10, I believe), and had won a free trip to play in the US Open for Beach Volleyball in Manhattan Beach, CA.  She said it was an incredible experience.  This picture is from that tournament.  She also had this to say about beach vs. indoor, "I'm mostly retired from indoors - too cruel on your body once you get older - but I'm now playing beach volleyball semi-professionally.  Such a blast and sooooo much more fun than indoors!"

To the right is a picture of her brother getting married.  It's fun to have both the "athletic" Knox, and the "totally decked out" Knox with her family.  Thanks for sharing your new life, Knox, and next time you're in VT I hope we're in town too so we can catch up in person!

If you're an alum--send me updates any time, and we'll just keep adding to the Alum database of fun updates and pictures etc.  

Reunion 2012

What a fun weekend!  I had recently talked to Jane and Elissa and told them that we'd all be on the same reunion schedule in the future since they were graduating in 2012, and I was having my 20th reunion ('92).  I had a friend returning for reunion, and was looking forward to seeing others from my class, but I hadn't heard from any volleyball alums.

Well, I took my family and we were having dinner and catching up with my old college roommate when Rachael Faraone '02 and I spied each other!!  We had such a nice chat, and she was teaching my kids some blocking technique, or maybe high-fives, and what fun!  She's a lawyer and is currently doing some soul searching for just what makes her truly happy in life, and it was really great to catch up with her.  She also commented that she's finally gotten her blocking timing down.  She's not early any more!  Better late than never, I say!

Sometime after that, I realized that Carolyn Stewart Birbiglia '97was actually in my same tent (they'd combined the 20th and 25th classes under one tent)  What fun it was to catch up with her.  She had both of her adorable kids there, one of whom wasn't feeling all that well, which was too bad.  She's doing well, though, and was very happy to be back on campus for reunion!

There were fireworks on the old practice football field (which probably didn't make the neighbors all that happy), but it was a great MIDD celebration.  It was a time to relive some glory days, and to catch up on what we've all become since we left (most of us anyway?!) our little time capsule of MIDD LIFE.

I would encourage any/all MCVB alums to come back, and please let me know when you do so we can catch up, even if it's only briefly!

Lizzy and Olivia Conquer the "Tough Mudder!"

Earlier this summer, I didn't even know that much about the "Tough  Mudder" other than that it's a hardcore event that some of the guys in our department have done!  So, after Olivia and Lizzy did it this month, and sent me a picture at the end with all smiles, I knew I had to do a little research.  Here is the description of it:

"Tough Mudder events are hardcore 10-12 mile obstacle courses designed by British Special Forces to test your all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie. With the most innovative courses, half a million inspiring participants, and more than $3 million raised for the Wounded Warrior Project, Tough Mudder is the premier adventure challenge series in the world."

How about that!  Way to go, guys!!  I'm so proud of you.  Now, that makes our fitness test look like a stroll in the park with your grandparents!  (SO, that means absolutely NO complaining about bringing the timed mile back!)  :)

One more month of summer--enjoy doing whatever and however you define enjoyment!!