The women's volleyball team ended their season on Thursday Nov. 3 with a 17-19 record overall, after falling to East No. 2 seed SUNY New Paltz in the first round of SUNYAC playoffs.
New Paltz swept the Knights in three sets, 13-25, 21-25, 15-25. Senior Kat Strickland led the offense with eight kills, with freshman Jessica Prater close behind with seven. Sophomore Noelle Morrison tallied 23 of the team's 24 assists, for a season total of 927.
Junior Laura Galvin collected 15 digs on defense, while Morrison contributed 10 and senior Alex Hughes added nine. Galvin led the Knights with 563 digs on the season.
"We had a great week of practices leading up to the New Paltz match," wrote head coach Jen Salmon in an email. "The team was playing very well and prepared for what we were going to see with New Paltz as our match-up … but the [team] didn't execute and play their game at all on Thursday. It was not a good representation of Geneseo volleyball."
Strickland, an important and dependable contributor to each game "will be hugely missed," according to Salmon.
"[Strickland's an] amazing leader both on and off the court … [a] fantastic person and student-athlete. Her shoes are going to be hard to fill next year both on and off the court," wrote Salmon of the departing senior.
Salmon wrote in her email, however, that she is excited to see who will take on the challenge of filling the seniors' roles: "It's completely up to the returners and who wants to prove they deserve the opportunity."
What coach Salmon said she knows for sure is that next year will be marked by "a lot of change, higher expectations [and] more commitment."
"We plan on being a stronger, better team and in turn win more matches with the ultimate goal of competing for the SUNYAC championship."