BY DENNIS FAN

In print | Published October 23, 2008

The Swarthmore Women’s Volleyball Team (5-16, CC 1-5) continued a rocky season this past weekend with a loss to Centennial Conference rival Johns Hopkins University in three sets, 25-9, 25-16, 25-14. Over fall break, the women played a solid match against Dickinson College for their Digging For A Cure Fundraiser, eventually losing in four sets, 22-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22.

Though the Swarthmore women outpaced the Blue Jays in digs, 43 to 40, the Garnet had trouble producing significant offense, supplying far fewer kills per attempt than usual. During the match, Genny Pezzola ’12 led the team with 13 digs on defense while Kearney Bangs ’10 added that same number of sets.

“On offense, we couldn’t keep the ball in the court,” Coach Harleigh Chwastyk said. The Johns Hopkins women also had a sizable advantage in numbers. While the Swarthmore team struggled with numbers, Johns Hopkins had a heft of experience and players on their team with five seniors and six juniors.

Despite the disappointing loss to Johns Hopkins, this fall break can be seen as fairly positive on the whole. The Dickinson match marked positive performances for many members of the team. Jen Wang ’09 posted 13 kills and a team high of 22 digs and libero Erin Heaney ’09 tied the team high for digs. Two other players, Hillary Santana ’12 and Pezzola, contributed double-digit dig counts.
All of these digs proved to be immensely important for the team’s aptly named Digging For A Cure Fundraiser. The team received both standard donations and matching donations (i.e. a donor could contribute a dollar a dig) in its National Breast Cancer Awareness Month initiative. A usual match might end with 60 or so digs on the part of the Swarthmore women – this time, it was 94.
Along with a clinic the Swarthmore women held for high school students, which raised $150, the donations for this year’s Digging For A Cure fundraiser may far exceed expectations (though the actual figures have not been added up yet). Other Centennial Conference teams also participated in the fundraiser and after the collection of donations is completed, a final figure for the total donations should be available.

Fall break also marked an opportunity for the team to engage in more relaxing, team-building activities. “We had a ‘Rocky’ workout at the Philadelphia Art Museum where we ran up and down the stairs and up and down Benjamin Franklin Boulevard while the coach would talk at us about how we were the underdogs, like Rocky,” Sarah Lambert ’11 said. Lambert also mentioned that the team went bowling, went on a haunted hayride, and had a team dinner, courtesy of the team’s first years. Pezzola (a first year herself) praised the classy dinner, noting the cheesecake and her own pomegranate salad.

The volleyball season comes to an end in two weeks, granting only four more matches this season for the women to come out on the court and play their hearts out. For seniors, these will be their last four matches on the Swarthmore team. The Garnet is putting together a Senior Day at the game against Gettysburg College this Saturday at 1 PM for the outgoing senior women, Wang and Heaney, to celebrate their tremendous achievements over their careers and during this season. The team hopes to break the school attendance record for volleyball games this season and this game should prove to be an exciting opportunity.

Looking at this season in perspective, Wang reached the career 1,000-kill milestone in the middle of September and Erin Heaney shattered the school’s career dig record in early October and has surpassed 1,500 digs. Chwastyk comments that “The program has taken a huge leap over the past five years,” and certainly, the Garnet has played solid, competitive volleyball this season.
Chwastyk added that “You need to falter sometimes,” a lesson we could all learn (and one that was echoed in Rocky). It feels as if the women are ready to put the past weeks behind them and fight out these next two weeks. Pezzola stated the team’s situation best: “We need to play how we can play — all out.”

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