Women's volleyball earns split

The Plymouth State's women's volleyball team broke even with a split in its two matches at the Keene State College Spaulding gym, in the inaugural Little East Conference-New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Challenge Sat., Oct. 18.

 PSU fell to Smith College in a three set match by scores of 29-27, 25-17, and 26-24; while beating Mount Holyoke College in the second match of the doubleheader by scores of 25-9, 25-4, and 25-15.  With the weekend split, PSU moves to 15-9 on the season.

Smith College was looking to avenge an early season loss to the Panthers.  All three sets were hotly contested with Smith College edging out the Panthers in all three sets.  

Although PSU dropped all three sets, PSU coach Moira Long was pleased with how her team battled back in the 2nd set, "I think in the match against Smith we did a really good job of coming back in the 2nd set. We were down 8-2 and made some substitutions," said Long, "The bench really came in to provide a spark. Sarah Cady, Alex Avery, Megan Elliott all stepped up and really made some great contributions to get us back into the set. Unfortunately it was a little too late," said Long.

The Panthers had a well-rounded effort in their match against Smith College.  Eliza Badeau led PSU with 11 blocks and two kills, while Carly Newton chipped in with nine kills.  Sarah Spears also added three aces and nine digs. Smith College was led by Courtney Parker who had 11 blocks and two kills while Alexander Rissi had eight kills, three aces and two blocks.

The second match of the weekend doubleheader against Mount Holyoke College came with more success than did the first match.  PSU rolled through a decisive three set match with ease as Badeau had 10 kills and five block, while Newton had eight kills for PSU.  Mount Holyoke never seemed to be able to get any momentum going on there side while scoring a total of 28 points for the entire match.

Although they earned a weekend split, coach Long saw room for improvement, "We need to improve on the outside of taking advantage of one of one situations. We will also need to improve on scoring points on our serve," said Long, "We need to get back to serving the ball tough and passing the ball for the entire match. When we do those two things, our offense really comes together."

After playing on the road against Middlebury on Oct. 22, PSU will take on UMass Dartmouth and UMass Boston.  UMass Dartmouth has a record of 10-9 with a 1-2 Little East Conference record while UMass Boston has a record of 6-4.