MIT Women’s Volleyball cruise past Mount Holyoke College and Husson University
MIT Women’s Volleyball beat Mount Holyoke College and Husson University in a tri match on Saturday Oct. 5 at the Rockwell Cage
The first match the Engineers played was against Mount Holyoke College whom they beat 3 sets to 0 (25–9, 25–10, 25–11). Credit for this victory goes to Hannah Collins ’22, Alyssa Unell ’23, Andie Maloney ’21, and Madison Lee ’20, who played exceptionally.
The game started off with a 4–1 lead for Mount Holyoke courtesy of Brayden Walden who served a couple of aces. But the Engineers quickly caught back, eventually reaching 7–6, after which they caught momentum and went on an 11–nothing streak, starting off with a kill from Alexis Groark ’20. The start of the second set was also quite competitive as the teams got into a deadlock at 6–6. MIT caught momentum once again, and thanks to a 19–4 run, won the set. The women won the last set quite easily, 25–11, registering the first win of the day. Hannah Collins led the team in kills, registering 11 of them. Andie Maloney tallied 29 assists and three aces, while Madison Lee led the team in digs with a match high 7. Alyssa Unell showed an excellent display of skill and strength with six kills and four aces.
Later in the day, the team also played Husson University whom they also beat 3 sets to 0 (25–12, 25–16, 25–13). During this match, Emily Condon ’21, Sofie Kupiec ’23, and Francesca Macchiavello ’21 performed exceptionally.
MIT, blooming with confidence from the previous game, won the first set of this match 25–12 comfortably. Husson University bounced back in the midst of the next set, developing a 4 point streak with the help of two aces and bringing the score to 14–14. The fight continued till the score 17–16, after which MIT had an eight point streak which led the Engineers to win the second set. The third set started off with a Husson University ace by Cat Torres, but MIT answered with four straight points right after. The teams went back and forth till a score of 6–4, after which MIT went on to a 15–2 run which later led to a 25–13 3rd set victory. Sofie Kupiec performed exceptionally well with 34 assists while Emily Condon registered a match-high 11 kills. Francesca Macchiavello also played well with five digs and five aces.
One of the best moments of the day was when a missed dig from Mount Holyoke College went through the basketball hoop behind their court. This incident cheered up the crowd and players, many of whom said they had never seen this before.
These two excellent victories led MIT to reach a NEWMAC conference tally of six wins and no losses. We hope the team can continue this performance in future matches.