Tension was high for the volleyball team today on senior night as it went up against rival SUNY-Cortland at Ben Light Gymnasium in what turned out to be a disappointing night for the Blue and Gold. 

Ithaca had defeated the Red Dragons with ease this past weekend at the Blue Devil Invitational. However, the Bombers had no such success today, dropping its last regular season home match 3–1 (25–14, 22–25, 25–19, 25–19).

From the start of the match it was clear that walking away with a win would not be easy, as Cortland came out firing and jumped out to an early lead. The Bomber offense seemed out of sync to start the game, which didn’t help a defense that struggled to fend off the Cortland attack.  

Head Coach Janet Donovan said that while Cortland is a good team, Ithaca’s early struggles came on their own accord.

“We made a lot of mistakes, and that is uncharacteristic of us,” Donovan said. “We started very flat and they just capitalized on that and took it to us in the first set.”

In the second set, the Blue and Gold came out ready to up their level of play. Sparked by the serving of senior Corinna Doctor early on in the set, Ithaca took the lead and managed to hold on to even the match at one set apiece.

The momentum didn’t stay in the Bombers' favor for long as Cortland pulled away in the third set, leaving the Blue and Gold in a tough position to rebound from. In the end the Bombers couldn’t pull off the comeback and watched as Cortland held on to earn the victory.

Part of the reason for the Bombers' slow start could have been the fact that they had recent success against the Dragons. Senior Rachel Busch said that while the team really wanted the victory, they weren’t expecting such a tough struggle.

“We never want to look down on any team,” Busch said. “We were thrown off by the fact that we had beaten them so easily a few days ago, and I guess we just weren’t ready for it."

Busch, who recorded 51 sets during the match, said she would have liked to come away with a victory on senior night. She said when she was putting something extra on her hits, it was because she was fueled by the rivalry between Ithaca and Cortland.

Sophomore Kate Thoene said she has also been feeling the pressure of the intense rivalry and has been able to respond to the big game situation in a positive way. After posting a career-high 19 kills against Cortland on Friday, Thoene led the team’s offense again with 15 kills on 25 attempts. Thoene, who missed Monday’s practice because of a virus, played hard through her sickness tonight and said she uses the rivalry as extra motivation.

“They’re our rival so naturally you get more amped for it,” Thoene said.

Thoene, like the rest of her teammates, was upset by the loss but said that the Blue and Gold don’t plan on allowing anything like this to happen again. 

Donovan said that her team is looking to build on their mistakes as they approach the postseason.

“We really need to work on being focused from point to point throughout matches and getting rid of a lot of the mental errors we had,” Donovan said. “We’re going to work in the gym, not only on our skills — but we’re also going to work on our mental training.”

Fortunately for the South Hill squad, they will have another shot to protect their home court as Ithaca hosts the New York State Regional Challenge on Oct. 31. Donavan hopes her players will use this loss as motivation down the stretch.

“Right now the kids don’t like this feeling,” Donovan said. “To come out in our home gym and get beat like this is not a good feeling, so hopefully that will motivate us going into the rest of this season.”