Several Honored in Post-Season

Well, what a season. We had the 2nd most wins in school history, our first NCAA win, and 3rd NESCAC Championship, but first in over 10 years. In the process, several players were honored with individual recognition. I like to add here that the team is only as strong as it's weakest link, and these honors prove just how deep we were. Let's see, where to start:

Lauren and Whitney were honored as two of the top seniors in New England by being named to the New England Senior All-Stars.

Lauren was the MVP at the Hall of Fame Tournament during the season, as well as being named NESCAC Player of the week that same week. She was also 1st Team All-NESCAC, NEWVA 1st Team All-New England, AVCA All-Region, and an AVCA Honorable Mention All-American.

Jane, who was named the NESCAC player of the week 3 times this year, was also the NESCAC Player of the Year, 1st Team All-NESCAC, NEWVA 1st Team All-New England, AVCA All-Region, and a 3rd consecutive year as an AVCA Honorable Mention All-American.

Julia Gibbs earned a spot on the 2nd Team All-NESCAC, AVCA All-Region, and an AVCA Honorable Mention All-American.

Megan Jarchow was our 3rd NESCAC Rookie of the Year in a row, in addition to being named to the NEWVA All-Rookie Team, and NEWVA Honorable Mention All-New England. She was also the NESCAC Player of the Week in the final week of the Conference season.

Caitlin Barrett was the first player from Middlebury ever named to the NCAA Regional All-Tournament team, and was also an NEWVA Honorable Mention All-New England member.

Due to the fantastic team success this season, the coaching staff was also honored by being named the NESCAC and NEWVA Coaching Staff of the Year.

We will be having our banquet before we leave for Christmas Break, and will report on those team awards when we have them. All three juniors will all be going abroad this Spring, and we'll try to keep up with their adventures abroad too.

Season Ends in NCAA Regional Semi-Finals

Well, I guess it had to end sometime. What a fun season it was, though. The format for the NCAA Regional was a little strange, but as the #3 seed, we had the first time slot, which was the 12:30 match on Friday. Because of that, we came down to our hotel on Thursday night after practice, which is always kind of fun. (It makes us feel a bit like professional athletes.) The NCAA assigned us a hotel, which was one of the nicest we'd stayed in all year, so that was fun, too. It even had a Dunkin Donuts within walking distance.

In our opening game of the NCAA's on Friday afternoon, we played NYU-Polytechnic. They had some athletes, but were not nearly as deep as we were, and we basically controlled the tempo from start to finish. MJ, Julia and Elissa were our main offensive weapons with 9, 8, and 6 kills respectively. Amy Hart came off the bench in game three to have 4 kills, no errors on 7 swings for another one of her super-efficient hitting games! Caitlin had a match high 15 digs, and Lauren kept her 10 Assists per game up with exactly 30 Assists, while Stud played some great back-row defense. Meg played some right side, Maddie had a solid couple of games splitting time with the other middles who each played two games. Caroline made her debut back on the court for the first time in over 3 weeks, and Charlotte H. finished out the match behind the serving line. NY Poly was pretty big upfront, however, and blocked us pretty well, even though our coverage was fairly decent. For such a lopsided game, we thought (foreshadowing...) that the big block would be good preparation as we advanced.

Since we played so early, we had a leisurely lunch (outside in the warm sunshine, believe it or not!) where we once again enjoyed some of Lauren's mom's special sandwiches. We then went back into the gym to watch UMass Boston beat Maine Maritime as badly as we'd beaten NY Poly. It was such a lopsided game, that it didn't last long, but at least we got a look first-hand at what UMass Boston was doing, which was nice.

Our parent contingent was excellent once again! They had the M shirts from NESCAC's, signs, and cheers. It was great. They took us out for dinner (again), which was oh-so-generous as we ate above our budget (again!) and certainly got our fill at Bertucci's. THANK YOU!! Since we ate late, MJ's mom had her phone out at the table getting live stats for the Tufts vs. Springfield match going on at the same time. Springfield wins game one...game two....and a sweep of Tufts in three straight! Amherst would now play Springfield in the other Semi-Final. After dinner, Lauren and I went shopping for breakfast and lunch items for the next day, and then we all got to sleep in the next morning since we didn't play until 3:30pm.
I will note here that the NCAA has some rather odd peculiarities in general, but especially before the match starts. Not only are you not allowed to drink Emergen-C, or eat clementines and orange juice, but you are not allowed to be on the court, or touch a ball until exactly 60 minutes before the match starts. OK, fine. Then, right before the match starts, they take both teams and all the officials and go off the court in separate corners. Once the "dramatic music" starts, the officials lead each team out of their respective corners and march them to their end lines for the lineups and anthem. When the theme song for "Indiana Jones" came on Friday afternoon, I actually started to laugh out loud (almost). I think it was Julia who commented that we're merely pawns in the bureaucracy of the NCAA. It was pretty funny. The schedule of the matches allowed us plenty of time to hang out at the gym to watch matches, or to do work around the hotel (or paint nails, or both.)
Anyway, Saturday afternoon at 3:30 we played UMass Boston in the first Semi-final. We came out ready to go and took a close first set 25-20 behind our largest kills total--19 (and by far best hitting %--.471%) game of the match. We served them pretty well, and got them out of system, and we were able to use our middles early and opened up other options nicely. It was a very tight game back and forth until we finished out the set on an 8-3 run for the first set win. Whit had 4 kills on 5 swings, MJ had 6 kills on 9 swings, and Jane had 5 kills on 8 swings in the first game, which is great.

The second set, however, was a bit like the body-snatchers. We just didn't look like ourselves, or at least not the selves that we had looked like for quite a while now. We got down early and had a look of doubt on our faces like we weren't sure what was going on. We weren't passing well, we were getting blocked badly, and got down early from the first server on, and trailed the whole game. Julia was the only hitter without a hitting error in that game that saw us hit .135%, and Jane was the only one with more than 2 kills as she racked up 5 again in the 2nd.

The third set was a tiny bit better, but not a lot. It was another tight set like the first one to about 11-11, but when they went on a four point run at 15-11, they never looked back. They were forcing the action, and running the middle, and we were the ones on the defensive, and still hitting into the block. Caitlin came up with some big digs from their power hitter, but they had several balls go straight to the floor where we weren't. Perhaps the swing blocking made us "feel" like we had space to swing which then was not there, or we just didn't adjust to using other options well enough, but they blocked us very well. It was also a factor that we weren't pressing the action enough to force them out of what they wanted to do often enough. I felt like whomever was in system more was better able to control the action, and that was them in this match. #8 for them hit heavy balls from the back row too, and scored a few times on those plays even when we did our job of forcing them out of system and making them set back row. That all lead to us trailing most of the 3rd set as well, and not really challenging to take that set.

The fourth set opened up well, as our fight came out. We took an early lead, only to see it get swallowed up, before basically trading points for the last half of the set. It was an extremely tight last set as we were fighting to extend the match, and they were fighting for the win. I really felt like if we could just force a 5th set, then the match was anyone's game again. We still weren't clicking all that well, but I just felt like if we could pull out that game, we'd get back on track somehow. Well, we almost did...but not quite. We were down two match points, and came back to tie it, only to get down match point a few more times. I think we had set point only once in the extra points segment, but couldn't capitalize on it. We successfully saved several match points, until #8 ended our season with a stuff block on the outside. She was clearly the player of the match with a match-high 22 kills. She is the New England Region Player of the Year, and her coach commented after the match that she's never seen her play any better. She had 27 points for the match, seconded by Julia's 17.

If you look at the stat line totals, it was a very, very even match in every category except one: blocks. They blocked us 11.5 times to our 5.0 blocks. They ran a very quick middle attack when in system, and that forced us to stay and respect that, which may have opened up some opportunities outside. We just didn't face that quick of a middle attack all year, and I think we had trouble defending it effectively, both at the net, and in the back defensively. Also, #8 had a great match that proved a bit too much for us to handle. Caitlin by far had the match-high digs with 25, and we had three hitters with double digit kills: Julia (15), Jane (14), and Whit (11). MJ added 9 kills, and Elissa added 6. Lauren ended with a match-high 44 assists, and very good set distribution once again, trying to get everyone involved, and spreading out our offense, but still getting the most sets to our hot hand: Julia. She proved to be our best attacker on the day, hitting at almost .300%. Our receive struggled a bit due to thier tough serving, despite only having 5 receiving errors to their 3. I think it was off just enough to keep us from being as unpredictable as we wanted to be. The other thing that hurt was when we did pass well, we weren't consistently taking advantage of those opportunities offensively. All in all, that added up to a UMass victory. The fight we showed in the last set was great, and despite our many late-game comebacks this year, I guess we just didn't have one more left in the bag.

It was very sad to end the season, as always, but I really feel that this team had the talent to win at this level. There have been those years where we ended our season by losing the first round of the Conference Tournament to Williams and actually played really well, and felt pretty good about it! We didn't play awful this day, but we didn't play our best game either. I give UMass Boston a lot of credit, however, as they pressured us a lot, and really forced us out of our game. We did some very good things, however, and the team should be very proud of their efforts all season. We deserved to be here, as one of the best teams in the New England Region, and I think we showed that.

Truth be told, I don't shed tears that often when the season ends, but this was definitely one where I did. Some frustration at not playing how we wanted, and some sadness that it was actually over, I think. What a special group of young women. It was a fun ride, so thank you to everyone for making it a special season--one to remember for sure! I've had more emails from alums and others about their enjoyment in keeping track of our season this year, and that's been fun as well. I'll have a separate blog entry for all of our post-season honors as we had several players get some very nice honors this season, so there's still more to come....

MIDD WINS NESCAC CHAMPIONSHIP!!

Well, what a weekend. That was FUN! The NESCAC Tournament has been the ending point of our season for many years now, and in a some ways, it's what we train for all season. We definitely enjoy each match for itself, but when goals are set, they usually involve doing well (or winning) the NESCAC Championship. We knew the tournament would be very tough this year, as always, but I think we all felt like we had as good of chance as anyone to win it, if we played well, and we did! Paul Anderson caught the winning moments on film, which is awesome, so here are a few great pics of the moment:

In Quarterfinals, we faced Trinity, who had beaten us earlier in the year at Amherst in five games. We were excited by the match-up because I think we wanted to prove that we could beat Trinity. I'd say everyone played pretty well in that match, but our lone rookie in the lineup had a particularly stellar game with 18 kills, 1 error on 25 swings! They couldn't seem to do anything to stop her. Julia and Jane also had good hitting nights, as they added 11 and 10 kills respectively with only 2 errors a piece. And after missing the first match-up with Trinity with an ankle sprain, Whit had 4 kills on 12 swings with no errors, while Lauren had 45 assists and Caitlin had 22 digs to lead the defense. After the match, we went to Whole Foods to get dinner-to-go so we could get back to the gym to watch the Bowdoin vs. Williams quarterfinal, whose winner we'd play on Saturday. We love Whole Foods, and hadn't had the chance to go there yet this year, so that was fun--we do love our food!

With the win, that meant that we got to spend the night and got another chance to play together. After a nice night in the hotel, we had a leisurely breakfast, hung out a bit at the hotel, went into town to grab a sandwich for lunch, and headed back to the gym to hang out some more until our 3:30 match that afternoon. We were excited to watch the Tufts vs. Amherst match at 1:00pm--never too much volleyball. Tufts had been "on" the night before as they beat Conn in 3, and by all accounts looked tough. Amherst came out a little tight it seemed, and never really got going, while Tufts just took command of the game and won in straight sets!

We knew Williams would be a tough opponent because we'd watched them upend Bowdoin fairly easily the night before behind some pretty tough play by their seniors, one of whom is the older sister of our very own Meg! This match was another true team match as different people stepped up at different times to help carry the team. Jane and Julia took control of the first game as they had 8 and 5 kills in the first set alone. The second set saw us have 15 kills with only 1 error combined as a team. In the 3rd set, Whit had 4 kills on 8 swings, with no errors, and Julia had 6 kills with only 1 error to propell us to victory.

I believe we were down 13-18 in that 3rd set before we started our slow, but steady comeback. Williams had seemed to take control of that third set and looked as though they might take it, when we slowly started our comeback. We called a timeout at 13-18, and then Whit had 3 kills pretty quickly to spark our comeback. What may have tipped the scale for good was a HUGE block on their big middle on her patented slide play that Elissa was all over, and sent it back to the floor quickly. That both sparked us, and seemed to put some doubt on the faces of the Williams team. MJ also got a late service ace to help seal the deal (and I believe that she aced Williams last time on match point?!) It took guts, poise, and confidence to come back and pull out that last set. We've shown that poise and determination several times over the course of this season, but it was great to be able to come from behind by that many points late in the game against a team like Williams! Caitlin came up huge with some incredible digs in places we never could have told her to be, and Elissa also had a couple of huge digs to go along with her great serving game.

We finally tracked down some rooms for another night (something big was going on in the area because the whole town was booked solid.) We ended up in Holyoke, but not before we had a wonderful sit-down dinner at Bertucci's with all the parents. What a TREAT! Great food, time to eat and relax, and also being able to share that experience with our "super-fans!" We had great parent and friend fans there, and Jane's mom actually made big M shirts for the parents to wear for spirit, in addition to many signs that someone made! (We found out on the bus ride home that Kelli actually used an exacto knife to make the M stencil for the shirts--she's a teacher for sure with creativity skills like that!)

Daylight savings happened on Saturday night, so we all felt like we should have been better rested than we actually felt on Sunday morning, but nevertheless, we were ready to go. We knew Tufts was going to be a different challenge than we'd faced in the Tournament to date because they were the most balanced team offensively. So, it was no surprise that we traded sets to start off the match. They were blocking well, and actually tipping a lot on us, which was a little surprising, but effective. We finally got a handle on that to a certain extent, but we also got in a rhythm finally where our hitters could see the spots open up more and found some places to put the ball down. Something happened to Jane's foot somewhere in the 4th game too, and she had to come out to get taped up, and Stud came off the bench and stepped in right away. She passed well out of serve receive, got some touches on blocks, and got a kill, which was GREAT. Once again, (we've said it all season), our depth has been a catalyst for us every day in practice, and in instances like this, it's just reinforcement of how important that is! Way to go, Stud!

I haven't seen Tufts stats, but they seemed to be hitting pretty well, from both the right and left sides, in addition to one of the middles, and I have to say that Caitlin came up with so many big, big digs and she saved many, many balls from going down, and gave our offense a chance to attack back when it seemed that the ball was going to go down. They'd have a big, powerful hit that would just pop back up to Lauren and then we'd be off again attacking ourselves. They attacked the right side of our defense a lot too, and Lauren and Julia both came up with 16 digs in the match. It was a very competitive, back and forth match, which made for an exciting Championship Match.

My hat's off to Tufts. It was a great match, and they looked like they might be forcing a 5th game when they were up late in the 4th. But, once again, we staged a poised, if not somewhat precarious comeback again to take the final set 26-24. Caitlin had 42 digs in the match, while MJ had 23 digs and 16 kills. Lauren ended with 49 assists, and 16 digs, while Jane had 15 kills, 3 blocks and 2 aces. Julia had 3 aces, 9 kills, 16 digs, and no reception errors on 35 attempts for a very balanced game.

WAY TO GO, MIDD!! NESCAC CHAMPS!! We heard congrats from all kinds of friends and alums--it was a great day for MIDD Volleyball as the team, parents, alums and friends all celebrated with us, both courtside, and from afar. Our AD said that the President was watching the webcast while he was out and about, and had attracted a small crowd to see what was going on as well, which was fun to hear! It was a good day in general to be a Panther as the men's soccer team also won the NESCAC's!! Yeah Midd! Now, we'll get some rest tomorrow and then get another chance to practice and prepare for what lies ahead--the NCAA's--new territory for us. Should be FUN!

MIDD Finishes Regular Season with 2 Conference Wins

It was Halloween weekend, and again we found ourselves at Hamilton, for the 2nd year in a row. This time we were facing Hamilton and Williams, and we were fighting for a top seed for the upcoming Conference Tournament. On Friday night we faced an ever improving Hamilton squad, which we managed to put away in 3 sets behind some very solid play all around. Jane and Julia were our offensive leaders with 11 kills apiece, and only 3 errors between them. MJ also had 10 kills, and Stud had a great hitting night with 6 kills and only 1 error in just over 1 game!

Lauren's parents (OK, Caitlin's too), brought us those wonderful sandwiches again and some salad and other goodies so that we could stay there and eat dinner and watch the Williams vs. Amherst match at 8pm that night. If Williams beat Amherst, then we would be playing for the top seed the next day against Williams. They certainly made it exciting for us! My gut said that Williams just didn't have it that night after they lost the first two games, and were down quite a bit in the 3rd. But then again, it is NESCAC volleyball, and in typical NESCAC fashion, Williams went on a run, and came back in that 3rd game to win. Not only that, but they won the 4th too, to force a deciding 5th game. It was all well worth the free price of admission as it was back and forth the whole way, but Williams couldn't quite pull out the victory, and lost 16-18 in the 5th. We were all glued to the bleachers, and found ourselves in the unusual position of rooting for Williams!

The next morning, we got our chance to play Williams, and our shot at winning the 2nd seed outright. Jane and Julia were again our offensive leaders, along with MJ with 12, 12, and 13 kills respectively, while Elissa contributed 7 kills. We served very well in the match, recording a total of 14 aces, one of which was match point--yeah MJ! Elissa led the serving stats with 4 aces, but Lauren and MJ both added 3, and Jane and Caitlin each had one, which meant that each one of our servers had an ace in the match, which I don't think has happened all year? Jane led our defense with 24 digs, while Caitlin had 14.

It was a little lopsided, as only one set had both teams in the 20's. We won the first and third games by the scores of 25-15, and 25-17, and they won set two 25-18. In the final set, however, we came from behind to win 25-22. We were down 14-17 when I heard Brain remark, "come on now, let's get one here!" I think we may have pulled ahead on that server, and then exchanged points before having a little run at the end to pull ahead for the win. It was a very exciting win for us, as that was the first time our seniors had ever beaten Williams! (Truth be told, it was also Brian's first win over them, which I hadn't even realized since he's been here for 7 seasons now. Yikes!) Needless to say, it was fun!

After the match, Stud's mom had prepared us a fantastic meal to take with us so that we could hop on the bus and head home. Her parfaits, a marvelous fruit salad, and pasta salad, in addition to other various goodies! THANK YOU, PARENTS!! We've had unparalleled support this year from our parents, who have taken care of us on the road, and at home, which is so wonderful. They not only come and cheer us on, but they bring all kinds of food and goodies with them. Julia's mom brought Halloween goodies--yum, and the parfaits that Stud's mom is now famous for were gone long before lunch was even thought about! I'm noticing now, however, that the picture we took didn't have all of our parents that were there even in it. Meg's parents, Stud's parents, and Cordle's mom and sister were all there as well as those pictured. (Sorry we missed the whole group picture!)

As we left for home, there was talk about the Amherst vs. Hamilton match. If somehow Hamilton could manage to beat Amherst, we could still end up with the #1 seed. No offense to Hamilton, but we just didn't think that was possible this year. As we were headed west on I90, we get a text from a parent that had stayed behind that Hamilton had just won the first game and the bus erupted in cheers. It would be short-lived, as Amherst won the next three relatively quickly, but it was fun to think about--go Hamilton!

Now, we're preparing for the Tournament with one match at a time on our minds. We got paired up with Trinity in the #2 vs. #7 seed at 5pm next Friday, and we will be ready! The NESCAC Tournament should be as deep as it's ever been, and we are all excited about that challenge and the opportunity to keep playing! We will keep focused on playing our best volleyball, and see how far that takes us. We try to look at one match at a time all season, but especially at this point in the season, it's more true than ever. At this point, each match you win earns you the opportunity to play one more.

MIDD Wins Hall of Fame Gold Bracket

We were excited to be in the Gold Bracket for the Hall of Fame this year, after having been the #1 seed for the Silver Bracket the last couple of years. The good thing about the Gold Bracket is that all 8 teams there were very good teams, so the competition in every game was going to be great, and we knew that, and we were excited about that challenge!


We started out Friday night matched up against MIT, who we haven't played in many years. They are an athletic team, with pretty good size, and a balanced attack, so we knew it would be a tough match-up for our first round. We started out very well, and jumped on them early. We served well, and got them out of system, and they made a lot of errors. As we expected, however, they bounced back in game two and it was very close, back and forth. Jane had the hot hand in game two and came up with some big kills and we won that game 25-23. After that, it was more back and forth, but we came up with a couple of key blocks, and defensive plays, and pulled away to take the match in 3 with a 25-19 win in the 3rd.


One of the best things about playing the early match, which this time was at 5pm, was that after we played, we could shower, watch some of the next match (we would play the winner of that match), and still have time to go out to a sit-down dinner! For all of our subway nights, and sandwich nights, it was really nice to actually go out to a restaurant and have a real dinner. After that, we went back to the hotel, and had time to hang out that night, and also sleep in the next morning with a match-time on Saturday of noon.


Tufts beat Brandeis in the match we watched some of, so we were to play Tufts the next day at noon. They were without their starting setter, but seemed to be running their full offense other than that, and we were prepared to play a tough match! We got off to a quick start and never looked back. MJ was playing all the way around without Caroline with us, and she did a fantastic job defensively. Julia had a great all-around match with 12 kills, NO errors, on only 24 swings! She also had 3 assists, 3 aces, and 6 digs to round out an excellent match. Jane, Maddie and Elissa all had good hitting nights with only one error a piece and 6, 6, and 5 kills respectively. Jane added 4 service aces and served a match-high 23 times, and also added 10 digs and a solo block to round out her well-balanced game. MJ added 7 kills to help pace the offense as well.


Both Stud, and Amy got in for part of a set each, and both did an excellent job of maintaining, and raising the level of our play right away. Stud came in and immediately made a very head's up play at the net, and played through the front row, and finished off the game serving for game point. Amy, who came in for MJ late in the 3rd set almost immediately got a kill as soon as she came in, and then also buried the match-winner in the deep cross-court angle to finish the match. She finished with two kills on two swings--now that's hitting efficiency!


We had a decent blocking game for us. We had 4 different people with a solo block, and a total of 6 block assists, with Lauren having three of those to go with her 32 assists, 3 aces, 2 kills, and 11 digs! Caitlin was very solid all match with a team-high 20 digs, and no receiving errors.


Due to the format, we then had a match off with time to actually eat lunch, and read, do work, or watch volleyball. We quickly went over to watch the end of the Amherst vs. Bowdoin match to see who we'd be playing at 4pm. Bowdoin, after upsetting the #6 seed Springfield in 5 sets the night before, was beating Amherst, and thus we ended up playing Bowdoin for the finals.


They were very "up" after two great wins, and we knew they'd be a tough match. We'd played them twice already this season, and won in 3, and 4, but both of us seemed to be playing very well right now, so it was shaping up to be a great match-up. We got off to another great start, and once again, never looked back. We dominated the game, which was very fun to see. We served well, we blocked and hit pretty well, and our defense was very solid. We forced them out of what they wanted to do offensively, and out of serve receive, and took control of the tempo of the game. We won the match with scores of 25-15, 25-15, and 25-20. They didn't go without a fight, and when they made a late run in the 3rd set, we held them off with some great team play. MJ, who struggled a bit hitting against Tufts, bounced right back with 12 kills to lead the offense (and also had 2 blocks), while Jane had 9 kills with only 1 error.


With our balanced attack all weekend, Lauren was awarded the Tournament MVP for leading the way. To our surprise, (and, I guess, it shouldn't have been a surprise for me, but I'd missed it somewhere along the way), by winning the Gold Bracket, we also won a NEW set of Mizuno jerseys!! How FUN. The team was beside themselves, and almost thought it was a joke, (albeit, a bad one if it was one!) So, that was a fun surprise! I think we all felt good about how we played as a team, and we made sure to recognize the fact that it was a TOTAL TEAM effort. Without the support, and hard work of everyone on the team, day in and day out, we wouldn't be adequately prepared for weekends like this. We played well, which was great to see. GO TEAM! We have a big weekend coming up next weekend with our final two Conference matches at Hamilton. We'll work hard this week to be ready for that. One day at a time!

MIDD Wins on Senior Night

It was nice to have a couple of days off from class on Monday and Tuesday, but we couldn't take time off from practice. Our last regular season home match, and Senior Night was Wed. night against the Panthers of Plymouth State University. We started off the night by introducing our two seniors, Lauren and Whit, both of whom own school records. Whit holds the single-match record for total blocks, and also is 4th on the all-time hitting % list at MIDD. Lauren already holds the records for total assists in both a career, and in a single season, with 4 matches left in the regular season. In addition, as you might imagine, she also holds the assists per game records, and currently is ranked among the top 3 in the Conference in assists per game.

It was nice to see Whit back in the lineup after some trouble with her ankle, but she ended up leaving after another tweak, so we're hoping that that heals up here very soon. Caroline wasn't with us due to her concussion, but we're hoping she's back soon as well.

We got off to a great start, and completely dominated the "other" Panthers in the opening set. We served well, and they were making unforced (and maybe some forced) errors all over the place. In the second set, Plymouth started to find their game, and challenged us to step up to that. Our serve receive was a little shaky, and we tried both MJ, and Meg back row to try to settle our recieve. They had a couple of outside attackers that started to put the ball down, and we didn't quite adjust to it quickly enough to pull out a very tight game 2, 24-26.

After that, the last two games were pretty close, back and forth, but we managed the last run, and pulled away late in both sets to win 25-22, and 25-19. MJ, and Julia led our offense with great hitting nights. MJ had 15 kills with only 2 errors on 27 swings for a .481 hitting %. Likewise, Julia had 14 kills with only 3 errors on 34 swings for a .324 hitting %. Jane also had double-digit kills with 10.

Caitlin led the defense on the floor with a 20 dig night, but both Maddie and Elissa had 3 solo blocks to help that defensive effort at the net. Julia had a very well-rounded game with 4 service aces and 6 digs to go with her stellar hitting, and Lauren ended the game with 40 assists.

It was a good challenge mid-week leading up to our weekend at the Hall of Fame Tournament where we're seeded #1 in the Gold Bracket and will play some of the best teams in New England, starting out with MIT on Friday night.

Tough Weekend for Panthers

This was a big weekend for us, having to play all three CT schools. We figured they'd all be tough, but we knew that Conn. and Trinity had just battled out a back and forth 5 game match between themselves, and they'd both probably be the tougher competition. The weekend started out well with a convincing 3-0 win against Wesleyan. We played well, and felt good about what we were doing. We had arrived in time to watch some of the Amherst vs. Trinity match before our match, and it was nice to see what Trinity was doing live. We then got refocused on our upcoming match, and we did a nice job of coming out strong, and finishing strong against Wesleyan.

The next morning we faced a tough Conn College team, but despite being behind most of the first set, we pulled out an almost unlikely win in that set 25-23. They serve pretty tough, and our receive was struggling with that, so it wasn't pretty, but both sides were getting in their kills. The second set was much the same as the first, but we didn't get quite as far behind, but we still were trailing a fair amount. Again, we surged ahead toward the end to get a 2-0 lead by the slim margin of 25-23. We knew they weren't going anywhere, and #12 seemed to just hit harder, and try as we did, we couldn't seem to muster the string at the end to pull out the 3rd set, but we still lead 2-1.

We dropped the 4th just barely by two points again, and it was that type of match--back and forth all the way. Neither team getting much of a lead at any one time. The fifth was the same and was tied at 10-10 before a string of tough serving put us on the defensive a little too much. Four of the last five serves to us were either shanked, or rated a 1-pass, which means we had very few hitting options out of serve receive, and I think that hurt a little too much. We'd struggled with our receive all night, a little run by them at that point was tough to come back from, and they scored the last five points in a row to win the match.

After the hard-fought loss to Conn in 5, we had about 30 minutes to regroup and get ready to play Trinity, who had just watched a good bit of our match with Conn. We knew they would be scrappy and dig a ton, and we thought we were prepared for that. Our serve receive looked much better than it had in the Conn match, but it seemed to be "off-speed" balls that gave us some unexpected trouble. We knew their two outsides, and their right side were their main offensive weapons, but we didn't seem to shut any of them down much with our Block, and were left to dig from the back row. #7 hurt us hitting around the block deep, where we weren't, which was a little frustrating, but she's a good hitter. One of the middles was hitting off-speed to 1, where it should have been relatively easy to dig, but more went down than we'd have liked from that spot as well.

We were attacking Trinity, and they were digging pretty well, but when they'd give us either a back-row attack, or a free or off-speed ball, we just didn't seem to be moving our feet to pass it perfectly. Instead, we were passing it up to the middle of the court, or off the net so Lauren had to chase it, and it took our Middles a little out of the offense, and thus made our OH's more affected by a cheating block. Then they started to dig that much more, and block us some.

We knew their defense was pretty deep, and we struggled to really use different speed shots that well. We tried hitting all different angles, but mostly deep where their diggers were. I will say, however, that for losing the first two games after just coming off a tough 5 gamer with Conn, I think we did a nice job keeping our wits about us and winning the next two games to force another 5th game. We started out the game well, and even though we were down when we switched sides at 8, it was only 6-8. We tied the game and even went up 13-10, (I think), but lost a couple in a row before calling timeout at 13-12. We went up 14-13, but then they hit one deep over our block to zone 6, and tooled our block twice, and that was the match.

Of course, it was extremely tough to lose both of those matches in 5. I do believe, however, that we will learn from this, and be stronger for it. We've not had a lot of experience with super scrappy teams that just dig a ton, and have good hitters, and I think this will benefit us in the long run. We have actually shown a lot of poise in several matches so far this year in coming from behind to win individual sets, and that calmness under pressure is good to see. I think we have the calmness under pressure, but we may need the "sense of urgency" at times also?! Toward the end of Trinity, however, we didn't seem to be as sure of ourselves, as we have in the past, and we actually had a couple of miscommunications, which are uncharacteristic.

In my opinion, Trinity out-played us and deserved to win. It's the NESCAC, and that's the way it is. You have to be ready every match, and every point within the match. There will be tough breaks, and great shots on both sides, and you have to be playing your best to win against any one of the top NESCAC teams. Even though they had very good hitters, and they play very good defense, I don't think we took good enough care of the ball when they were just keeping it in play. We made some of the tough plays, and we made a lot of good plays, but didn't make the easy plays good enough to really maximize our offense. In addition, I don't think we have reached our full potential of our offensive talents yet, which is something that we'll be working on. I think we do certain things really well, for the most part, but we need to have a few more options. Our blocking is improving, but we still have some work to do there, and obviously, we will still be working on consistency with our serve receive.

We have some great matches coming up before we head into our last Conference Weekend, and then the Tournament. Senior night is Wed. against Plymouth State, and then we head to the Hall of Fame Tournament, where we'll play MIT on Friday night. There will be most of the top teams in New England there, and it will be another great opportunity to test our resolve and skills!