By Ed Morrone
Despite two losses in the weekend leading up to Saturday’s semifinal in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament, the Pride volleyball team seemed destined to win its first conference tournament since joining the CAA in 2001. However, it wasn’t meant to be as the second seeded Pride dropped the match in an sweep to the University of Delaware. Game scores were 30-21, 30-25, 31-29.
It’s hard to pinpoint why and how the Pride (19-9) fell short in a tournament it so desperately wanted to win, but the common consensus among the players and coaches was that it was a routine, run-of-the-mill bad game that couldn’t have struck at a more inopportune time. The word that everybody seemed to use was flat.
“We prepared and knew what we were going to be facing,” Pride head coach Fran Kalafer said. “We even had a great practice on Saturday [before the match], but unfortunately we practiced better than we played. We came out on Saturday night as flat as flat can be. Delaware played great and did what they needed to do.”
Added freshman setter Shellane Ogoshi: “I wish I knew what happened. We came out really flat. Our energy was good but we didn’t perform like we were supposed to. Delaware played a good game-I’m not going to take anything away from them-but I know we should have and could have played a lot better.”
In a season marked by so much promise, the end result was certainly surprising. The Pride stumbled to a bit of a mediocre start before winning 15 of the next 17 matches, including all 12 at its home arena and big conference victories over such opponents as Delaware and Towson, the team that eventually went on to win the CAA championship on Sunday. But the team ran into some problems in the last weekend of the regular season and was swept by both George Mason University and Towson. The two losses threw away the possibility of the Pride having crucial home court advantage in the tournament. The Tigers of Towson claimed the home court and the rest is history.
These problems led to the letdown against Delaware (23-8), a team that the Pride had split two matches with during the regular season. The team trailed for most of the three games (except for a short period in the third) and couldn’t overcome the outstanding play of Blue Hens senior Sarah Engle, who had a match-high 17 kills in 32 attempts (a fantastic .438 hitting percentage). Delaware also held a sizeable advantage in team hitting percentage, hitting .271 as opposed to the Pride’s paltry .145.
Junior Tessa Sphar led the Pride with 10 kills and Ogoshi added 36 assists and 17 digs in the losing effort. In the last match of their careers, Pride seniors Julie Tatar and Nicole Smith tallied seven and four kills, respectively.
However, despite coming up short in attaining its ultimate goal, the Pride still has a lot to be proud of and look forward to in the future.
“We’re a young team, so we have a lot of good players coming back and a good recruiting class coming in,” said Pride sophomore middle blocker Elizabeth Curley. “We’re just going to work hard to get even better and hopefully take that CAA championship next year.”
“We accomplished too much this year to just call our season a disappointment,” added Ogoshi. “I’m upset that we lost but we did overcome a lot of different things and that just shows our character. I’m very proud of this team.”
The future is definitely bright for Kalafer’s team. Despite losing Tatar and Smith-who both had career seasons-to graduation, many talented players will be returning. Curley led the team with 305 kills and a .369 hitting percentage and earned All-CAA Second Team honors.
Ogoshi, constantly referred to as the “quarterback” that made the offense go, was CAA Rookie of the Year and led the team with 1218 assists and 366 digs. First-team selection Tessa Sphar and Jessica Levy will return as the team’s two seniors, and other talented players such as Talita Silva and Catherine Durakis will also be back.
Above all, the 2004 Pride volleyball team was one where the successes outweighed the failures, something that might not be recognized because of how the season ended.
“Unfortunately everybody remembers what happened last the most,” Kalafer said. “Originally I was worried with the problems we had in the preseason but this group was special and we would not have been able to attain what we did if they didn’t come together like they did as a team. We’ll take a lot away from this season in terms of the experience we gained, which in the end is what it’s all about.”
“We’re always going to remember this loss and the feeling it left us with,” Curley said defiantly. “It just motivated us to want to win even more.”
And there is nothing flat about that statement.
Volleyball Notebook
Final Awards
The Pride had several players and its coach honored at the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Awards Banquet in Towson, MD on Friday night. Freshman setter Shellane Ogoshi was named CAA Rookie of the Year and head coach Fran Kalafer earned CAA-Coach of the Year honors.
Ogoshi exceeded expectations in her freshman year, quarterbacking the Pride to a 19-9 overall record. The freshman from Honolulu averaged team-highs in assists(11.94 per game) and digs(3.59 per game) while playing in all 28 matches this season. Ogoshi’s Rookie of the Year award marks the second consecutive such honor for the Pride, as Elizabeth Curley won it last year.
Kalafer earned her first Coach of the Year honor since Hofstra joined the CAA in 2001. In her career, Kalafer currently has an overall record of 589-325, with the wins being tenth among active Division-I coaches. She shared the award with University of Delaware coach Bonnie Kenny.
In addition, junior Tessa Sphar earned first team All-CAA honors, Curley clinched a spot on the second team, and Ogoshi and Talita Silva were both voted to the CAA All-Rookie Team.
Some Final Odds and Ends
The Pride failed to win 20 games for just the fifth time since 1982, when it became a Division-I program…The Pride finished with a 12-0 record at home, and were only one of two teams in the CAA to finish undefeated at home, with the other of course being CAA regular and postseason champions Towson…The ten wins in the CAA were the second most the Pride won since joining the CAA in 2001. The team won eight in 2001, 13 in 2002, and eight more in 2003…The team finished first in the CAA with a .257 hitting percentage and second in blocks per game with 2.48…Ogoshi had 22 double doubles in 28 matches this season as a freshman…Tessa Sphar currently ranks ninth on Hofstra’s all-time list in kills with 1,027. The all-time leader is Lena Malinowski with 1,654, who played from 1994-98.