In the past two weeks, the already struggling women?s volleyball team took on the toughest part of its schedule. The first round of the University Athletic Association round robin tournament was held at Washington University in St. Louis.
In the first set of matches, UR team took on a tough team from Emory University.
The Yellowjackets lost in three sets 30-15, 30-24 and 30-18. Senior Megan Harvey provided some spark to the team?s efforts with six digs on defense and four kills.
The second day of play gave UR two more tough UAA opponents. The first match for the Yellowjackets placed them against the host team Wash U. Failing to keep the game close, UR lost 30-20, 30-17 and 30-19 dropping its record to 2-13.
The second game of the day faced the Yellowjackets against New York University. UR started to get some momentum and kept this one tighter than the first two games.
The Yellowjackets began to put the pieces together and helped keep the game tight despite losing 30-24, 30-27 and 30-18. Harvey once again had a good game, collecting five digs and four kills. This time Harvey had some help from freshman Liz Loveless, who had three digs and five kills.
Junior Candis White also had an outstanding game, collecting an impressive 11 digs.
As a team, UR collected 28 digs ? the most of all teams the tournament.
In between two weekends of the UAA tournament, the team took on three more teams at the St. Lawrence Invitational. UR lost their first match to Allegheny University by the score of 30-15, 30-25 and 30-22.
The second game of the day proved to be the best one of the week for the Yellowjackets.
The team took on Union College and won in a fluke four-set match. The first set was lost 31-29 but the Yellowjackets turned it on and picked up the next three sets en-route to victory.
In the third and final game of the day UR once again took on Union and this time the tides were turned and Union won in four sets with UR picking up the third set by a score of 30-22.
This past weekend, the Yellowjackets faced the rest of the UAA in the second round of the round robin tournament held at Carnegie Mellon University.
In the first day of play, UR faced Brandeis University in what proved to be another four-set match that the Yellowjackets lost 30-27, 30-24, 30-16 and 30-28.
The second game of the day was the longest of the tournament. The game against Chicago University went into a tough fifth set, in which Chicago won 15-13 to knock off the Yellowjackets.
In the final day of games, the Yellowjackets split two games.
They lost the first game to host Carnegie Mellon and picked up their first victory in this tournament against Case Western Reserve University. Statistics for this game were not available.
At the end of a long two weeks, UR?s record stands at 4-21.
The team?s next home game is this Friday against Elizabeth College at 2 p.m. UR will play again at 6 p.m. against Medaille College. These games are part of the Meliora weekend celebration.
Johnston can be reached at cjohnston@campustimes.org.
