In its first contest since a second-place showing at the MIT Invitational over the weekend, the women's volleyball team didn't lose a step Tuesday, defeating Div. II Stonehill in straight games.
The victory, Tufts' sixth in its last seven matches, improved the team's mark to 7-6 and pushed the team's record over .500 for the first time this season.
"To test ourselves against a Div. II team is a great opportunity for our team," assistant coach Marritt Cafarchia wrote in an e-mail to the Daily. "Our goals were the same as every game this season. Number one: love this challenge, and number two: be as close to perfection as possible. Our girls came out and fought hard."
Cafarchia is filling in for head coach Cora Thompson while she takes a personal leave of absence.
The Jumbos came out sluggish, however, resulting in a close first game that could have gone either way. But Tufts won the battle, 31-29.
"It was a really slow game, with lots of points back and forth and tons of unforced errors," senior captain Katie Wysham said. "We gave them 14 points off of unforced errors. It wasn't pretty, but we came back in the end. We started with a four-point run, and then we tied it up. At the end, we just finally put it together."
"We were making mistakes instead of letting them make mistakes," senior Stephanie Viola said. "But then we just hit the ball over and let them make mistakes."
Tufts trailed in the second game, thanks in part to Skyhawk freshman Justine Thompson's six kills. Cafarchia called a timeout to regroup the team.
"We called a timeout and realized we needed to pick up the intensity and play smart," Viola said. "That's when we started hitting the ball to specific spots, the middle and deep corners."
"In the second game I just told the team to take care of the ball, to take control of the tempo in the match, and we started to do that," Cafarchia said.
At that point, the Jumbos hit their stride, taking the second game 30-27 and the third and final game 30-22 to put the match away.
"In the closing game we pulled together," Viola said. "We came out trying to play a high energy game and won."
Sophomore Brogie Helgeson finished the match with 12 kills on 19 attempts and only two errors, arguably the best performance of her collegiate career. Freshman Dawson Joyce-Mendive continued to impress, contributing 10 kills, while Wysham added nine along with three aces.
In the backcourt, junior Natalie Goldstein recorded 21 digs, pushing her over 200 for the season. Junior Maya Ripecky, sophomore Dena Feiger, and freshman Caitlin Updike also posted double digits in digs.
Leading the team with 242 assists on the year, junior setter Kaitlin O'Reilly hurt her ankle towards the end of the first game and was sidelined for the rest of the match. But the team is hopeful that she will return this weekend when Tufts hosts the Jumbo Invitational at Cousens Gymnasium.
"The team rallied back, but it was a big loss for us," Cafarchia said of O'Reilly's absence. "It looks like she will be okay by this weekend."
On Saturday, Tufts will be looking to repeat the success it had last weekend at MIT, when it advanced all the way to the championship game before losing to the host Engineers. The Jumbos won their host event last season, beating MIT in the championship game, a marathon match that lasted five games and four hours.
"We're really stoked for this weekend, to be home for four games and get a rematch against MIT," Wysham said.
Regardless of the outcome, the Jumbos just hope to keep their momentum going, as they enter the weekend as winners of six of their last seven.
"The team continues to get better every time we step on the court, and that is very important," Cafarchia said. "We want to peak for NESCACs and postseason play, so we need to stay focused not only on winning, but also on getting better every time we play."
