Plymouth Women's Volleyball Team Continues their Winning Ways

After defeating Keene State this past Tuesday, October 4th, the Panthers brought their overall record to 12-5, and their Little East Conference record to 2-1. The volleyball team has now won eight consecutive matches after this victory.

Before the Tuesday match, Plymouth went 4-0 at the Wildcat Fall Classic last Friday and Saturday. The four matches, which Plymouth won a total of 12 sets to 3, saw senior Meghan Sullivan (Marlton, N.J.) and junior Casey Stoodley (Salem, N.H.) named to the All-Tournament team.

Between the Friday and Saturday matches, Meghan Sullivan had 10 total digs to go along with 25 kills, while Stoodley had 30 digs and 38 kills. Sullivan has been very quietly having a great year, with 80 kills and 44 spikes. Sullivan's great season has been shadowed because of great play from players such as Casey Stoodley. Stoodley, arguably the team's MVP thus far, having a team leading 216 kills, 179 digs (2nd on the team to her sister, Danielle Stoodley (Salem, N.H.)) and a team leading 527 total amount of attacks.

 The attitude of taking every game one at a time is something that Head Coach Chris Kilmer has done all year, and this has been quite evident over the past couple of matches. Despite being down early in a couple of sets at the Wildcat Tournament, Kilmer was confident in his team's ability to comeback. "I was especially happy with our late-game determination" said Kilmer. "We had big comebacks late in the third and fourth sets, which made the victory even more rewarding."

Being down in any sport is obviously not uncommon in sports. Being able to comeback, though, is crucial, not only to a team's record, but also to their psyche. With Plymouth being able to come back against UMass Dartmouth (who is also in the same conference as Plymouth), they should feel confident about beating anyone that gets in their way.   

As far as the match on Tuesday night went, sophomore Allie Jones (Canton, Mass.) had a game-high 20 kills while Casey Stoodley added to her impressive season with an additional 16 kills. After winning the first two sets of the match (31-29 and 28-26 respectively), the Panthers lost the third set (24-26), but regained their composure to win the 4th set 28-26. The Panthers had to work in all four sets though, as they were down 13-5 at one point in the second set. The comeback was on after they went on a 14-6 run, but the Panthers ultimately squeaked the crucial second set out.

The Panthers get a little bit of a break before their next match, as they traveled to Springfield College in Massachusetts to participate in the Tom Hay Invitational tonight and tomorrow. With the way that the Panthers have played the last couple of matches, the question might be who is going to stop them?