Volleyball Sweeps Pair of Home Matches

The Middlebury women’s volleyball team faced its first NESCAC competitor on Saturday, Sept. 21 and came away with a convincing 3-0 sweep in the first home game of the season. The Panthers followed with an out-of-conference victory over Colby-Sawyer two days later, dropping their first set of the season in the process.

On Saturday, Colby pushed the Panthers in each of the three sets (17, 22, 18) but failed to register a win as Middlebury ran its streak of consecutive sets won to 15.

“There are definitely some minor kinks to work out as is true with every team especially this early in the season,”  Piper Underbrick ’15 said. “However, if we just focus on our side of the net and continue to make strong plays and work as a unit we have the opportunity and the talent to go very far.”

During the first set, the teams went back-and-forth, seemingly setting the stage for a closely contested game. With the set tied at 13-13, the Panthers settled into the game and went on to win 12 of the next 16 points and settled the score at 25-19.

The second set was even closer than the first, with Colby leading 16-13 and then again 21-20. However, the Panthers stayed strong to snatch the second set by a score of 25-22, giving them a stronghold on the overall game.

Colby looked like snatching the third set but yet again lost a solid lead, going ahead 10-5 in the third set. With Megan Jarchow ’14 starting to serve for the Panthers, they claimed four straight to make it a 10-9 match. Colby came back with a 17-16 and looked like forcing the match into a fourth set, but Middlebury showed composure to win nine of the next 10 points, clinching the contest by a score of 25-18.

The Panthers were guided to the win by strong upperclassmen leadership. With explosive jumping and raw power, Amy Hart ’14 led with 17 kills and a .485 hitting percentage as well as bolstering the team defensively with 13 digs. Olivia Kolodka ’15 successfully tooled the block several times, leading to many of Middlebury’s points. Kathryn Haderlein ’16 helped set up the kills, who tallied 30 assists.

“[The game] was the perfect opportunity to get the first game jitters out of our system,” co-captain Meg Anderson ’14 said. “Now we can focus on increasing our consistency and continually improving our game.”

The jitters may have manifested themselves in the Panthers’ second home game of the season, however, as Middlebury narrowly defeated Colby-Swayer, 3-1. The Panthers took the first two sets of the game before the Chargers stole the third set 25-22. Middlebury rebounded with a 25-23 fourth-set victory to seal the victory.

The Panthers are back in action against Southern Vermont on Thursday, Sept. 26, before traveling to NESCAC competitor Hamilton on Saturday, Sept. 28.