Volleyball wins last home game, sweeps Smith 3-0

The Blue battled Smith for a
victory in the last home game of
the season last Saturday, bringing
their record to 20-9 for the season
and 7-2 in the NEWMAC conference.
Incidentally, this record allows
the team to receive a seed at
the conference tournament.
In honor of the last home game,
the two seniors on the squad, defensive
specialist Naomi Iwata
’10 and outside hitter Alice Cummings
’10, were acknowledged
for their hard work during the
past four years on the team.
In the first game, Wellesley
dominated the court, bringing
their lead up to 9-4 before Smith
took a time-out to regroup. The
squad played quick sets to the
middle hitters, helping them to
gain points early in the game.
Cummings’s trick plays helped to
score the team’s first few points.
Coming up between the middle
and outside hitters to snag the
ball, she threw the Smith defense
off balance and gained the kill, a
scoring spike that is not returned
by the opposing team.
Smith called a second timeout
after Wellesley had a string of
points, expanding its lead to 21-
13. The Smith squad had trouble
digging hits from Elizabeth
Campbell ’13 and Taylor King
’13, who play outside hitter and
middle hitter, respectively. Campbell
sent the ball hard and fast towards
the Smith defense while
King made decisions in mid-air
to find open spots and scored.
After the second time-out however,
Smith cut the lead to 23-19,
at which point the Blue called
their own time-out. Wellesley
pulled it together for the last two
points, ending the first game with
a final score of 25-20.
In the second game, Wellesley
once again pulled ahead early.
Weak-side hitter and setter Isabel
Custodio ’13 set up multiple
sets for the hitters and knocked
a few down to the ground herself.
Campbell kept hitting hard
at Smith throughout the second
game.
Smith put over a lot of tips and
shoots in the second game, but
Wellesley managed to hold on to
its lead with footwork and communication
between team members.
Iwata, a defensive specialist,
recorded digs (hitting and redirecting
the ball before it hits the
ground ) and saves throughout the
game, especially as Smith began
sending balls over on the first and
second touches. The front row
made several blocks to keep the
Smith attack at bay.
Eventually, Wellesley pulled to
a 19-9 lead before Smith called a
time-out. The second game ended
with a final score of 25-12.
The third game proved to be a
closer matchup. There was a battle
for the lead for half the game,
with Smith an early 8-5 lead, its
first lead of the three-game match,
before the Blue tied the score at
9-9. After kills from Smith players
Bethany Weiss ’10 and Mikal
Minarich ’10 brought the score
up to 14-11, with Smith regaining
the lead, Wellesley fought back to
tie the score at 16-16 and called a
time-out after snatching the lead
from Smith at 19-16. When the
game resumed, Wellesley finished
up the third set with a final score
of 25-19.
Custodio said, “I think our team
had a great game and great end of
the season. We have been working
really hard preparing for the
NEWMAC tournament and I
think the Smith game definitely
showed that.”
Sweeping the first three sets,
Wellesley defeated Smith 3-0 and
recorded a team total of 42 kills
to Smith’s 28. Campbell led the
team in kills for the match with
14 kills and had no hitting errors
in the game. Cummings added
ten kills for the match in addition
to the seven digs she had at defense.
Middle-hitter King added
another seven kills to her stats.
Iwata had eight digs on defense,
while Custodio and Victoria Peng
’11, who both set throughout the
match, added up 34 assists between
them.
“We played pretty well and we
had fun. And I think everyone
felt as though they contributed
to the win. We’re peaking at the
best time of year to peak, right
at the start of post-season play,”
Cummings said.
The team headed off to the
NEWMAC conference tournament
for the

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out