The volleyball team had its four game winning streak, the longest of the season, snapped this past week as it ran into a nationally ranked team, and the defending New York State Champion.
The Yellowjackets increased their streak to four on the road against Hamilton last Saturday. UR prevailed 30-25, 30-17, 29-31 and 30-23. Sophomore Liz Loveless led the Yellowjackets with 48 assists.
Later in the day UR faced Vassar, and dropped a heartbreaker. After winning two out of the first three sets, the Yellowjackets dropped the next three including, a tiebreaker in the sixth set. The final score was 30-27, 27-30, 32-34, 30-20, 11-15. Loveless again led UR, breaking a personal record with 54 assists. “Vassar is a tough team, that has a winning record, and didn’t really expect a contest from us,” freshman Adrienne Monley said. “We really frustrated them as their coach received a red card for swearing, and the players yelled at each other for making mistakes.”
On Tuesday night, the Yellowjackets had an even tougher task ? defending New York State Champions ? Nazareth College. UR was swept 3-0, losing 17-30, 17-30, and 25-30. “We’re not putting much value into the loss against Nazareth,” sophomore Lauren Walsh said. “We already knew that we had qualified for the state tournament, so we weren’t too concerned with how we faired against Nazareth.”
UR has proven its opponents wrong all season and will attempt to continue to do so this weekend, at the New York State Tournament at Hunter College. “Many teams think that they can just show up and beat us,” Monley said. “Proving ourselves to our opponents has been our main motivation,” freshman Blair Nonaka added. The Yellowjackets feel they can be extremely competitive this weekend, and will look to make a statement. “There are three teams that are head and shoulders above the rest,” Walsh said.”We feel that we can legitimately beat the other eight teams in the field.”
Rybaltowski can be reached at mrybaltowski@campustimes.org.
