Coming off a solid first weekend, the women’s volleyball team’s record fell to 4-3 after the South Hill Classic at Ithaca College on Friday Sept. 7 and Saturday Sept. 8. The Knights were defeated by Ithaca College, Susquehanna University and Wesleyan University.
Ithaca took all three matches with scores of 25-13, 25-19 and 25-17 on Friday. Geneseo first-year outside hitter Madeline McLaughlin had a strong showing of nine kills, while junior outside hitter Grace Cergol contributed six kills and eight digs.
Junior libero Sam Mendelsohn dug 11 balls and senior setter Emily Ast had 19 assists before leaving the court due to a hit to the head during a middle attack.
Geneseo was able to muscle out a set win over Susquehanna on Friday, but it was not enough; Susquehanna came back and won the last two sets by a narrow margin. The scores of the sets were 25-22, 26-28, 25-22 and 28-26.
Many of the Knights had good showings against Susquehanna. Cergol added 20 kills and 26 digs; junior outside hitter Abby May had 12 kills, four blocks and three service aces; Mendelsohn added 18 digs. Sophomore outside hitter Alexandra Frank helped the team with 13 digs along with sophomore outside hitter Gabrielle Ayzenberg digging 12 balls.
With Ast out after the Friday match, first-year setter Morgan Michalski stepped up and contributed 37 assists. Sophomore middle blocker Kiersten Colvin was up at the net with May and also had four blocks.
The second day of the South Hill Classic continued to trouble the Knights. In their match against Wesleyan, their opponent handily took all the marbles. The scores of the sets included 25-16, 25-19 and 25-14.
In the match, Cergol had 10 kills and nine digs, Colvin had seven kills, and Mendelsohn picked up 10 digs. Michalski added 27 assists and Frank had four service aces for the Knights.
Despite their star setter Ast being injured for a majority of the weekend, the Knights were able to easily adjust to play without her.
“The team and I had all the confidence in our other setters to run a great offense,” Cergol said.
Ast felt the team’s mistakes this weekend were little things that could quickly be fixed with more practice.
“We made silly errors that our opponents were able to capitalize on and we did not stay disciplined enough,” Ast said.
These past two weekends have all led up to the beginning of SUNYAC play, allowing the players to see that not every team plays the same kind of volleyball.
“The games we have learned the most from were the games against Susquehanna and Ithaca,” Cergol said. “We are accustomed to playing traditional, tough volleyball but during these matches we had to adjust and play scrappier than we ever have in other games.”
The Knights will now head into a weekend of play at the Nazareth Invitational. They will face Medaille College at 4 p.m. and Nazareth College at 8 p.m. on Friday Sept. 14. They will then match up against University of Mount Union at 1 p.m. and Keuka College at 3 p.m. on Saturday Sept. 15.