The women’s volleyball team failed to build on Friday’s strong start at the Ithaca Invitational on its second day, losing both of its matches Saturday in Ben Light Gymnasium.
In their opening match of the day, the Bombers won the first set and had a large lead in the second set before collapsing against SUNY-Potsdam, 3-1 (25-22, 23-25, 24-26, 8-25). The Blue and Gold were swept by SUNY-Fredonia in their second game, 3-0 (16-25, 14-25, 17-25).
After narrowly winning the first set of the morning match against the Bears, the Bombers dominated going into the second set, racing out to leads as large as 10-3. But after that, Potsdam took over, finishing out the set on a 22-13 run and holding the Bombers to a single-digit point total in the fourth and final set.
Senior outside hitter and team co-captain Marissa Weil had 17 kills, junior outside hitter Justine Duryea had three aces and freshman right side hitter Christine Flannery had three aces for the Bombers. In addition, sophomore middle blocker Abbie Hutchinson had two blocks, freshman setter Carly Garone had 33 assists and freshman setter Dylan Gawinski-Stern had 13 digs for the South Hill squad.
The second match of the day was not as close, with the Blue Devils breezing their way through the first two sets before pulling away in the third set, at one point holding leads of 20-7 and 22-9.
Flannery and Weil had seven kills apiece for the Bombers, along with two aces and two blocks from Weil, 20 assists from Garone and 11 digs from Gawinski-Stern. With the loss, the Bombers fell to 10–11 on the season.
Garone was blunt about the reasons for the Bombers’ split performances at their second home tournament of the season.
“The first day we played together as a team,” Garone said. “Today, we played selfish.”
It was an assessment echoed by junior right side/middle blocker and team co-captain Syline Kim, who expressed her frustration with the team’s communication issues and the “serve- receive” formation teams use when its opponents are preparing to serve the ball.
“It’s definitely serve-receive and just communication in general,“ Kim said. “Everyone needs to start talking more, owning up to their mistakes and taking balls.”
Bombers Head Coach Janet Donovan said she told the team afterward to focus on moving on from the day’s results.
“Yesterday we were on, we were clicking, everything was showing up in a really positive fashion,” Donovan said. “Today, our passing was off, we didn’t have the same kind of energy we had yesterday and we were flat. I wanted to tell them that it’s just one day, we’ve got another one coming up, and hopefully we’ll get back to what we were doing and stay positive.”
The Bombers’ next match is their home finale against SUNY-Oneonta at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Ben Light Gymnasium.
