Volleyball splits another weekend; pressure builds
Casey Cheney
Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Sports
A weekend of missed opportunity diminished the Charger volleyball team's victory against Tiffin University and added to the loss against Ashland University on Saturday. Had the Chargers won against Ashland, they would have sealed their place as South Division champions.
The Chargers, now 10-3 in the conference, need to avoid such losses as the final selection of playoff teams is only two weeks away. Currently, two other teams are also hotly contesting them for the conference title-Northern Michigan at 10-3 and Grand Valley State at 9-3. Both Northern Michigan University and Grand Valley State University are currently on winning streaks.
Tiffin didn't last long against Hillsdale in the Friday match, Hillsdale winning three games in less than an hour - a positive end to Senior Night.
"Player-for-player, we just happened to have more than them and we played okay," head coach Chris Gravel said of the match.
Junoir co-captain Sydney Dow said their level execution on Friday was only enough to win and that Tiffin gave them a lot of their points.
This level of gameplay, however, was not sufficient to win against Ashland, who has stepped up in the last several weeks and won against more talented teams.
"Players choose to only play part of the time," Gravel said. "You play a good team, you're not going to win a lot of the time. And that's what we ran into [Saturday]."
Dow said Ashland had all the intensity in that match, a factor that will have to change if they hope to go far in the tournament. They couldn't seem to gain momentum against Ashland, she said, and anytime they did, they were already deep in a hole.
The loss against Ashland, sophomore Amanda Geelhoed said, showed that they are a young team, but they can overcome that obstacle. Sophomore Ashlee Crowder added that the team doesn't play with enough intensity on Saturday.
"We were a totally different team than we were [against Tiffin]. We should figure out that our week doesn't end on Friday. We have another game on Saturday," Crowder said.
The Chargers, now 10-3 in the conference, need to avoid such losses as the final selection of playoff teams is only two weeks away. Currently, two other teams are also hotly contesting them for the conference title-Northern Michigan at 10-3 and Grand Valley State at 9-3. Both Northern Michigan University and Grand Valley State University are currently on winning streaks.
Tiffin didn't last long against Hillsdale in the Friday match, Hillsdale winning three games in less than an hour - a positive end to Senior Night.
"Player-for-player, we just happened to have more than them and we played okay," head coach Chris Gravel said of the match.
Junoir co-captain Sydney Dow said their level execution on Friday was only enough to win and that Tiffin gave them a lot of their points.
This level of gameplay, however, was not sufficient to win against Ashland, who has stepped up in the last several weeks and won against more talented teams.
"Players choose to only play part of the time," Gravel said. "You play a good team, you're not going to win a lot of the time. And that's what we ran into [Saturday]."
Dow said Ashland had all the intensity in that match, a factor that will have to change if they hope to go far in the tournament. They couldn't seem to gain momentum against Ashland, she said, and anytime they did, they were already deep in a hole.
The loss against Ashland, sophomore Amanda Geelhoed said, showed that they are a young team, but they can overcome that obstacle. Sophomore Ashlee Crowder added that the team doesn't play with enough intensity on Saturday.
"We were a totally different team than we were [against Tiffin]. We should figure out that our week doesn't end on Friday. We have another game on Saturday," Crowder said.
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