By By Olson Barthelemy
The mark of a great team is more than blowing the opposition away. Truly great teams manage to pull out wins in the most difficult of situations.
The Pride volleyball team is making strides at being a great team after its performance on the road over the weekend. After a homestand, where it survived a five-game match against Georgia State University, the Pride managed the same feat, gaining victories against both the College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in consecutive five-game matches.
While five-game matches aren’t very desirable from the player’s standpoint, winning in this fashion speaks volumes for this Pride team’s ability to tough out the close matches as well as winning the easy ones.
“The strategies basically stay the same throughout the entire match,” senior outside hitter Tessa Sphar said on the five-game match wins. “If you try to change anything drastically then it has the potential of making us think too much. We don’t want to over think things. Instead we focus on what we have to do to win each point and then winning will follow.”
The last time the Pride faced William & Mary (16-8, 11-3), on Sept. 24, it lost in four games. That was also the last match the Pride lost, having gone unbeaten on an eight-game winning streak.
Despite the Pride’s winning ways entering the match, it was facing a Tribe team with a matching eight-game winning streak, having not lost since Sept. 23. With this being the case, something had to give, and one team’s winning streak had to end.
As was evident by the outcome of the match, neither team was ready to see its winning ways halted. Outmatched offensively, the Pride dropped the first game to the Tribe, 30-25.
The difference in a tight second game would be the Pride’s ability to rack up points via kills. The Pride managed to up its amount to 23 kills, while the Tribe managed only 15. The Pride would take the second game, 31-29.
Unwilling to let the match slip away on its home court the Tribe would come out on the better side of the ball offensively in the close third game with 21 kills, which masked a low .255 hitting percentage. The Pride could not seem to stay consistent offensively, dropping to 17 kills despite a higher .295 hitting percentage. Having trouble staying steady, the Pride lost game three, 30-28, and was down two games to one.
The Tribe, however, couldn’t put away the Pride and lost the fourth game, another closely contested game with mediocre offense, 30-27. Facing its first fifth and deciding game on the road, the Pride could not afford any mistakes. The Blue and Gold chose an opportune time to show up offensively, dominating the fifth game, 15-8, posting nine kills to the four of the Tribe and a solid .333 hitting percentage.
The last time the Pride faced VCU (16-10, 8-6), it won in a three-game sweep and coach Fran Kalafer earned her 600th career win.
The Pride couldn’t have liked the start against VCU this time around, falling behind quickly, dropping the first game, 30-26. The Pride was apparently unfazed, however, as it proceeded to take both the second and third games.
However, for the second match in a row, the opponent refused to go down without a fight, and the Rams won the fourth game, 30-22, behind a resurgent offense posting 22 kills and a tremendous .488 percentage. Yet again, the Pride found itself facing a fifth and deciding game on the road. This time, the task of pulling out the win would not be as simple, as the Pride fell behind early.
The team managed to tie the score at eight before going on to take the match, 15-12. Contributing to the outcome offensively were Talita Silva with a team high 24 kills, Beverly Rivera with 20 kills and Elizabeth Curley with 17.
Most importantly, this win revealed just how good a squad this Pride (17-6, 14-1) volleyball team is, managing wins under such pressure filled situations.
“Our team does a good job on focusing on the small things,” Sphar said. “We don’t get caught up in the fact that this game determines the winner. Instead we focus on the fundamentals of the game and make sure that the basics are there.”