Sports

Despite valiant effort, volleyball succumbs to Terror

Despite-valiant-effort-volleyball-succumbs-to-terror

Alex Zhang | Phoenix Staff

In print | October 9, 2008

The Swarthmore Women’s Volleyball Team (5-13, CC 1-2) battled McDaniel College in a fierce four-set Centennial Conference match this past Saturday. Though the Garnet would fall 3-1 (25-21, 15-25, 27-25, 25-15) to McDaniel’s Green Terror, the match was a thrill of turnarounds and near-win situations.

For most of the first set, the women’s play seemed impeccable. Gaining the lead in the third point through a service ace by Genny Pezzola ’12, the Garnet would hold onto the lead and widen it until a 20-16 margin forced McDaniel into taking a timeout. McDaniel would strike back, with unexpected tenacity, and capitalize on a few Swarthmore errors to win nine of the next ten points, taking the set 25-21.

The Garnet would crush what little momentum their opponents had gained and take the second set, 25-15. The third set proved unpredictable with the lead changing often. Notably, two serving continuums by Sarah Lambert ’11 scored a total of nine points to keep the Garnet in the game. The first came in the beginning, with Lambert serving four times to bring the women to 8-1. The second came after McDaniel had taken the lead – Lambert would first supply a kill and follow with five unreturnable serves.

Though McDaniel would eventually win the third and fourth sets, the Garnet proved again that they could play ferocious and outstanding volleyball. During this match, senior libero Erin Heaney broke the school record set by Erica George ’07 of 1,477 career digs to reach 1,483 digs.
Outside hitters Pezzola and Lambert along with Jen Wang ‘09 would put on memorable performances to pull the team to a season-best hitting percentage of .142. As has become customary this season, Wang and Pezzola provided both offensive and defensive presences. They would combine for 32 kills and 42 digs, more than half of the team’s cumulative kills and digs.
Coach Harleigh Chwastyk commented later, “I felt our effort was more consistent,” adding that the women were never “rattled” during the match. The women handled the presence of McDaniel’s 6’ 1” middle hitter Taylor Hergott especially well by serving tough.

Lambert echoed this, stating, “Our team has been playing a lot better. Realization that this is conferences now has set in … I feel like everyone is playing harder now.” Swarthmore’s conference match against Washington College this past Wednesday proved to be a clinic with the women winning in three sets, 26-24, 25-12, 25-18.

Chwastyk said that the team could not have been satisfied with Saturday’s result and would work on tactics that would make stronger in its remaining seven conference matches this semester. Chwastyk highlighted that it was important to “make it harder for [other] teams to transition … and [for us] to have better communication.”

Lambert added, “We just have to work with the plans our coaches have for each team we play, trust them, and trust that we can play smart as a team and we should be money.” Each match the coaches have a game plan that focuses on playing to Swarthmore’s strengths and their opponent’s weaknesses.

An addition to the ‘coaching staff’ this year is Anthony Yoshimura ’12, who Chwastyk describes as more of a “student-coach.” While in the past, Chwastyk has hired students to work as record keepers and score keepers, Yoshimura has the extensive volleyball experience needed to runs drills (and keep up with our tenacious team!) during practice. Often, he will role play as the opponent when the team works on a game plan for a coming game. The women will be playing and practicing through fall break. This coming Saturday, Oct. 11, will be a match against Dickinson College. A week later, the Garnet will face Johns Hopkins University. The Oct. 11 match against Dickinson will also mark the Digging For A Cure Fundraiser for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The team aims to collect $1,000 for the initiative. Talk to any member of the volleyball team for more information, or go to either the Swarthmore Volleyball webpage or the Centennial Conference homepage.