With the first serve Friday evening at the Margaret Bundy Field House, Hamilton’s women’s volleyball team set the stage for a promising season. The team hosted the Connecticut College Camels who were 6–0, having lost a mere two sets so far in the season. Despite losing the first set, Hamilton bounced back quickly to win the following three sets. Dorothy Poucher ’21 led the team’s kills with thirteen and had a total of three aces for the match. The second set was close, at 18–16 until Meghan Wilkinson ’19 and Margaret O’Brien ’18 came down hard with two aces and a kill, respectively, to give the set to the Continentals. The Camels tried to rally in the third, after Hamilton’s initial lead. As the score rose, it looked like the Camels might take the set at 23–22. Yet, Poucher and Courtney Brown’18 took the challenge with two fast scores to clinch the set for the Continentals. The fourth could have been anyone’s game, as the Camels and Continentals battled back and forth with no clear leader in the set. That is, until Hamilton came out scoring an unchallenged five-point run. The final set closed 25–16 for the Continentals, as they sent the Camels home with their first loss of season.
Even in this early stage of the season, women’s volleyball has outstanding stats and NESCAC ranked players making this year look very favor- able for the Continentals. Christine Zizzi ’18 leads the team with 4.1 digs per set, making her seventh in the NESCAC. Poucher and O’Brien back the defense with an average of 11 blocks each per game, and Emma Parkhurst ’21 is seventh in the conference with 8.2 assists per set, making the team a threat from all sides. When asked what the biggest difference in the team is from the previous season, Zizzi offered: “This year, we have a very focused, winning culture. We’re a group of girls who are all dedicating 20 plus hours a week on top of traveling for games on the weekend to play and to compete in a sport we love. We’re not dedicating all that time just to lose. We want to win. Our new coaches are incredible and very dedicated to us and the sport. I think all of the girls on the team come into practice working hard because we want to make the coaches proud. We don’t want to disappoint them. We want our new coaches to have a winning season just as much as we ourselves want to have a winning season.”
In facing off against Wesleyan on Saturday, the team’s dynamic was challenged as the Continentals lost all three sets to the Cardinals. While Hamilton proceeded to play their game, they just could not match the speed and ferocity the Wesleyan women brought to the court, sometimes going on scoring runs of 5–7 points completely unchallenged.
After the loss, the team’s reflection demonstrated much about the team’s dynamic and desire to win, even when challenged. Kyndal Burdin ’18 spoke of the team’s focus going forward, saying, “I think as a team we want to work on our confidence and starting our game strong. In volleyball, slow starts can really set the pace for a match. Mental toughness and discipline are also keys to our future success that we each individually need to work on so that we all can play our part and then as one we can reach our goals for the season.” These goals were similarly echoed by Brown as she spoke about the team’s adaptability, “The most important thing that we learned from this loss is that we really need work on communicating better with each other. Volleyball is a very fast game with a lot of moving parts happening at once, and in order to prevent chaotic situations we need to communicate more with each other on the court. We have also learned that we cannot afford to start off a match moving at a slow pace. We need to come out on the court moving at game speed all the time, or else the game will move too fast and we will not be able to catch up.”
Despite the loss to Wesleyan, Hamilton’s women’s volleyball is confident they will come back with more intensity and team strength than ever before.
The volleyball team will play Morrisville State and Wells College this Saturday, Sept. 23 at Wells College at 2 P.M. and 4 P.M. respectively.
