September 16, 2013
Two and a half hours away, Continental history was made. Battles were fought, some victorious and others not. On Sept. 6 and 7, the Hamilton College Volleyball team played at the University of Rochester Invitational. The team went 1-3, getting their first win in the books.
The first match was against St. John Fisher in a packed stadium with 150 spectators, which ended with a loss of 2-3. This was a close match, as shown by the scores: 25-18, 25-21, 26-24, 25-23 and 16-14. With a total of eight aces and 43 kills, the Continentals put up a great fight. The team also had a strong defense, with Junior Anna Brown contributing 16 digs, Emily Rosen ’15 adding 14 and Emma Lonadier ’15 coming in with eight.
Later that day, he Continentals played the home team, University of Rochester, and ended with a loss of 1-3. Once again, they fought hard, but, according to head coach Erin Glaser, the opposing serves proposed too many tough challenges for our team’s offense. With a total of 36 digs made by Brown, and three aces made by Rosen and Ivanka Temnycky ’17, the team clearly fought hard.
However, the team didn’t let its losses from the day before stop them on the morning of Sept. 7. The Continentals beat Oswego in three straight matches. Leading the game, Brenna Corrigan ’14 worked hard on defense to keep the ball up by making 15 digs, and senior captain Sarah Pfund ’14 followed close behind with 11. The scores of the three matches were 16-25, 25-27 and 17-25.
Later in the day, Hamilton lost to SUNY New Paltz with scores of 25-17, 25-14 and 25-17. These were close matches, with 17 digs made by Brown, 11 by Rosen, and eight by Corrigan. Despite the team’s balanced attack, their serves could have been a bit more aggressive in order to “keep the other teams on their heels,” as Coach Glaser said.
This match was definitely a tough one, but the team has only been practicing for two weeks. All the teams that competed against the Continentals had played in a tournament the week before, but Hamilton was prohibited from participating due to NESCAC rules. According to Pfund, the team is “still working out the kinks and figuring out what works best for us as a unit.” Volleyball is a sport that undoubtedly requires teamwork, so for the team to perform as well as possible, each member must trust her teammates. At this point in the season, the way in which each person individually contributes to the team as a whole is the team’s biggest asset, which is definitely an important one. As Coach Glaser said, “when I had to make substitutions each person that went in added value.” There are three rookies on the team who each showed great potential under the pressure of their first college game.
Pfund said, although the “record may not be the best on paper yet, we definitely were out there playing hard and working well together.” Despite the current 1-3 record, the team is looking forwarding to continuing their recent successes in the upcoming matches.
They travel next weekend to Pennsylvania to take on Swarthmore, Vassar and Stevenson in Swarthmore’s Annual Garnet Classic. The Continentals will face challenges as each of their competitors comes into the tournament with impressive records, including the Phoenix’s, who are currently ranked 7-1 thus far.
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