Volleyball Concludes Regular Season Play

Middlebury volleyball wrapped up its regular season with a split this past weekend against two NESCAC foes, losing to Connecticut College on Friday evening, Oct. 30 (25-27, 20-25, 26-28) but bouncing back Saturday, Oct. 31 with a big win against Tufts (22-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-19). Finishing at 7-3 in the conference, the Panthers secured the fourth seed in the NESCAC tournament in Brunswick, Maine, where they will square off against the Jumbos once more on Friday in the quarterfinals.

This past weekend’s games, combined with those from the prior weekend at the New England Challenge at MIT, brought the team’s regular-season record to 17-6. In Boston, they had come up short against MIT (20-25, 19-25, 22-25) and Wellesley (22-25, 25-17, 19-25, 23-25) but defeated Babson in straight sets (25-19, 25-18, 25-22).

In the week leading up to the New England Challenge, Head Coach Sarah Raunecker was excited to see her team tested.
“This weekend we’re going to play three very good teams in our region, but all non-conference, which will be great,” Raunecker said. “MIT is the top ranked team in NE, Babson is in the top 15, as we are, and Wellesley is always a good team, so the competition should be great all weekend. It’ll be fun to see what we can do against these teams.”

Even though the Panthers didn’t manage to win a single set against MIT, they put together a number of strong runs throughout the match and showed that they felt comfortable against premier competition (MIT was ranked no. 23 in the nation at the time). The game against Wellesley was more or less the same; Middlebury started strong out of the gates, taking the first set, but unfortunately struggled to stay in a consistent groove over the final three.

Against Babson, however, the Panthers controlled the match from start to finish, coming away with a decisive victory in straight sets over a team currently ranked #5 in New England.

In the eyes of middle blocker Gabi Rosenfeld ’17, with just a little extra push, the two games that the team lost might have come out quite differently.

“We had a lot of really great moments this weekend,” Rosenfeld said. “Our serve receive was extremely consistent, which allowed us to run our offense well. We showed that we can beat any team if we’re playing our best and staying positive, but if we don’t play with intensity, we lose to teams that we really should beat. The matches against MIT and Wellesley kind of just slipped away from us because we weren’t playing our own game.We let the other teams set the pace and could never take back the momentum.”

Notably, outside hitter Becca Raffel ’18 earned a spot on the all-tournament team for her play over the weekend, pouring in 35 kills over three matches to the tune of a .272 hitting percentage.

The NESCAC matchup against Conn College last Friday, Oct. 30 turned out to be an especially frustrating one for the Panthers, who stretched both the first and third sets past 25 points but never seemed to be able to take the reins against the Camels en route to a three-set loss. On a more positive note, team captain and setter Hannah Blackburn ’17 surpassed the 2,000 assist mark for her career. She notched 29 to bring her total to 2,003, good for fourth place all-time at Middlebury.

Outside hitter Charlotte Devine ’17 thought the team’s play felt choppy and a tad sluggish against the Camels, but praised the squad’s ability to make adjustments before Saturday’s match against Tufts.

“On Friday in our game against Conn., we were lacking the energy and flow that have allowed us to come together and play cohesively so much this year,” Devine said. “On Saturday, we really found that enthusiasm, and our defense and offense worked beautifully together to play a clean match against Tufts. So while we had our ups and downs on the weekend as a whole, I’m really proud of our ability to pinpoint what needed fixing on Friday and to come ready to play our game on Saturday.”

In fact, Saturday’s game had major implications for the Panthers’ playoff seeding. Had they lost, they would’ve shared the fifth spot in the NESCAC with Conn College (6-4). However, the Camels would’ve had the tiebreak, meaning the Panthers would be facing an uphill battle as the sixth seed.

Instead, Middlebury fought through a tough loss to Tufts in the first set to take the next three and come away with the win. The Panthers hit .227 to the Jumbos .166, with a number of players getting in on the action: outside hitter Isabel Sessions ’19 led with 15 kills and Raffel poured in 13, while middle blockers Eliana Schaefer ’18 and Melanie English ’17 combined for 18 kills and 6 blocks.

Still, Devine stressed that, regardless of whether the team had won or lost Saturday’s game, the team would need to focus on its own play rather than their opponent in the NESCAC tournament.

“We can take any team in the conference when we play our game: this season has proven that,” Devine said. “We’ve had some of the best teamwork on the court that I’ve seen in the three years that I’ve been playing here, and I know every single person on our team is committed and willing to place the team above everything else.”

The Panthers will face Tufts at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6. If they win, they will face the winner of the Bowdoin-Bates matchup on Saturday with hopes of making it to Sunday’s championship game.