Volleyball Falls to Clarkson in Second Round of NCAA Tourney

After beating Trinity, Bowdoin and Connecticut College to win the NESCAC Championship last weekend, the Middlebury volleyball team defeated Southern Vermont College 3-1 in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament on Friday night, Nov. 9. The Panthers could not advance out of the regional round on Saturday, however, as Clarkson ended Middlebury’s season by the same score.

Despite the second-round exit, the campaign was a resounding success for the Panthers, recipients of their fourth conference title.

“The championship was a total team effort with everyone contributing to the wins,” said outside hitter Meg Anderson ’14.

The Panthers’ first-round opponent, Southern Vermont College, entered the tournament with a 24-7 record in comparison Middlebury’s 23-6. The two teams were evenly matched, and it took Middlebury four sets to take down Southern Vermont and take home the final victory (21-25, 21-25, 25-21, 22-25).

Middlebury’s defense was unstoppable in the first two sets, putting intense pressure on the Southern Vermont offense and denying them multiple opportunities to put points on the board.

In the third set, however, the Mountaineers took over and won the set by four points. Southern Vermont senior Jessica Alvarez led her team by contributing 21 kills and totaling a .343 hitting percentage in the game. After letting one set go, however, the Panthers came back to claim the fourth set and seal the victory.

Kathryn Haderlein ’16 led the offense with a productive 52 assists and nine digs, while tri-captain Caitlin Barrett ’13 steered the Panthers to success with a team-high of 15 digs. Piper Underbrink ’15 finished the first round of the NCAA tournament making a statement with a .444 hitting percentage and four blocks to go along with it. The 3-1 win advanced the team to the second round of the NCAA tournament, against the host squad, third-seeded Clarkson University.

The game on Saturday also finished 3-1, but this time the result was not in favor of the Panthers, who dropped three straight sets after winning the first. Middlebury saw their season come to an end after the tough four-set match (21-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-18.)

Middlebury took immediate control from the start of the first set, keeping the lead the entire set and finally winning by four points with assistance from Lizzy Reed’s ’15 and Haderlein’s aces. In the next couple of sets Middlebury trailed behind Clarkson by a few points and in all situations the lead got the best of them and kept the Panthers from grasping a win in any of the last three sets.

“A few of the Clarkson hitters got hot hands in the last three games and we couldn’t get a good block on them,” Barrett said. “The first game we came out really agressively and played really well. We made a few unforced errors in the last three games and that kind of changed things around.”

Although the team did not leave the court as victors, they still had some notable moments from the match. Amy Hart ’14 had 15 kills and digs, while tri-captain Megan Jarchow ’14 also reached 11 kills and a trio of block assists. Haderlein had another remarkable game with 35 assists.

Middlebury finishes their season with an impressive 23-7 record, improving from last season’s mark of 23-9. Led by tri-captains Barrett, Madeline Firestone ’13, and Jarchow, the 2012 Middlebury volleyball team — and the graduating senior class, in particular — has a lot to be proud of as they hang up their jerseys, leaving the program considerably stronger than when they arrived.

“Looking back on things, it’s really cool to see how far the program has come since my first year,” said Barrett. “As a senior class we went our first years to NESCACs just happy to be there and hoping we could make a run. And now the past two or three years we go to the NESCAC Tournament expecting to win and hoping to go as far as we can in the NCAA Tournament. It’s really cool to see each recruiting class is stronger and stronger and that’s awesome for the program.”