The volleyball team has had a tough time since Sept. 26 when it swept St. Francis in the Stony Brook Invitational. The Bears (8-6, 0-2 in Ivies) have lost five games since, the last three coming this past week, with a loss on Oct. 1 to URI, the other two this past weekend in back-to-back matches against Yale.
They lost at home against the Bulldogs on Friday in four games, 16-25, 25-22, 18-25 and 15-25; then on Saturday they were swept in New Haven 12-25, 18-25 and 19-25. To start the Ivy League season against the "best team in the league is a little bit unfortunate," according to Head Coach Diane Short, but the players did not come out of the matches empty-handed.
Going into the game, the players knew they were up against one of the top two teams in the league from last year (the other being league champion Princeton).
"Going into the game, we knew we had nothing to lose," said Annika Gliottone '12, who played in both matches this weekend and led the team with 10 digs in the second match.
"We can just go in and give it our all. We can end up with a huge upset or we can lose. We were all pretty pumped up."
Unfortunately for the team, the result was the latter. After dropping the first game 25-16, the Bears came back strong in the second game and lead by four at 13-9 at one point. The Bulldogs gained the lead back with a 10-5 run to put the score at 19-18. But the team rebounded again and sealed the game at 25-22 to tie the match.
Lyndse Yess '09 lead the Bears in its comeback efforts by putting down 15 kills and digging up 15 balls. Captain Natalie Meyers '09 led the team with 37 assists and also helped the defense with nine digs.
"Both of them are great leaders and athletes," Gliottone said of the two seniors. "Lyndse is the go-to player for kills. She can hit and defend. Natalie is a very smart player. As a setter, you usually don't get that much attention. But she is, which is awesome."
With the match tied at one game apiece, the Bears looked to use their home-field advantage to keep the momentum on their side in the pivotal third game.
Tied at 13, Yale's offense picked up and the team pulled away with a 12-5 run to take the game 25-18. In the final game, Yale was equally aggressive in its attacks, and the Bears lost the final set 25-15.
"We didn't give up in the last two games," Gliottone said. "Yale is a good team."
Short said Yale's offense was too much for the team.
"They have great hitters," Short said. "In the second game (which we won), it was a combination of us hitting better and the making some mistakes."
Yale hit .310 on Friday and .393 on Saturday, whereas the Bears only hit .178 and .125, respectively. The Bears' hitting was held down by the Bulldogs' blockers who recorded seven blocks on both days, compared to three blocks by the Bears.
The Bears reviewed Friday night's game video before they faced the Bulldogs again on Saturday at Yale.
The team hung with the Bulldogs in all three games, but never had the final kick to finish a game, and the Bulldogs took three straight to grab the second win. Despite the loss, the Bears learned what it needs to do to take on a team at Yale's level.
"We realize we can contend with a team like Yale," Gliottone said.
"We took a game away from them on Friday. We do a lot of good things, but we need to do everything good."
But the team will not keep thinking about what happened in the last week.
"We had a couple of close games," Short said. "Now we just need to move on and prepare ourselves for Harvard and Dartmouth."
The Bears will host both matches at the Pizzitola Sports Center this weekend.
The team will first face off against Harvard at 7 p.m. on Friday and then take on Dartmouth on Saturday at 4 p.m. The team has some extra fire going into these two matches.
"We have a lot of frustration from this week," Gliottone said.
"We will turn that into positive energy when we play this weekend."
