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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Volleyball: Jumbos go 1–3 in weekend non-conference play

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10/11/16 Medford/Somerville, MA Tufts first-year middle / opposite hitter Christina Nwankpa spikes the ball in the 3-0 match against Babson on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016. The Jumbos struggled to find their rhythm at times over the weekend.

The Jumbos (8–4, 3–0 NESCAC) struggled to find their rhythm at times over the weekend, as they returned home from the Barker Chevrolet Classic II at the campus of Illinois Wesleyan with a 1–3 record for the weekend. Their only win over the weekend came in a thrilling five-set game against Wisconsin Oshkosh on Saturday.

Tufts struck first in the match, winning set one 25–22. However they los their momentum in the second set, falling by a wide margin.Oshkosh went from a hitting percentage of -0.043 in the first set to 0.242 in the second set, cutting down on errors and taking advantage of a less aggressive Tufts defense. The teams split the next two sets and the match came down to the a final and tightly contested fifth set. The Jumbos pulled it out with a 15–13 fifth set win largely on the back of extremely strong middle play. Sophomore middle hitters Heather Holz and Christina Nwankpa combined for 23 kills and 14 blocks. Because of their increased production on the offensive end, they forced Oshkosh blockers to commit to blocking them, opening up new hitting angles for the outside and right side hitters and facilitating the entire offense.

Coach Cora Thompson spoke to the importance of Holz and Nwankpa's improved play.

“Both of our middles had tremendous weekends especially when it comes to blocking. Offensively, when they did get set, they really took care of the ball and put it away,” Thompson told the Daily in an email. “Both Christina and Heather are so important as blockers because the success of our defense depends on their success and discipline in the front row and we simply could not have asked for more from either of them this weekend.”

Earlier on Saturday Tufts matched up against No. 16 Illinois Wesleyan, falling to the host school in four sets. Despite their one set win, the Jumbos failed to keep the other three sets close as the Titans put up dominant hitting percentages in two of the sets. The Jumbos had 21 fewer kills than the Titans in the match and couldn’t seem to get their offense going consistently. Junior outside hitter Mackenzie Bright led the team in kills for the match with 10, but even she had three errors of her own, contributing to the team total of 16 errors.

Tufts also played two matches on Friday, first matching up against No. 18 Washington University (St. Louis) and then against No. 12 Millikin.

In their match against WashU, Tufts struggled out of the gate, dropping the first two sets by a combined margin of 15 points. The Jumbos fell behind early 10–6 in the first set and after that point they could never quite recover. WashU won nine of the final 12 points to win the set. The second set went mostly the same, as Tufts spent most of the match attempting to dig themselves out of a hole too big to overcome. Tufts managed to flip the script in set three, scoring six straight points behind the strong serve of sophomore libero Kelly Klimo in the middle of the game and taking a lead too large for WashU to handle. They rode that momentum into a big fourth set win where they led the entire way. The Jumbos took a quick four point lead in the final set and it looked like they might be headed for the comeback win when the Bears responded with four straight service aces on senior defensive specialist Alex Garrett. After that, WashU put together a 6–0 run mostly fueled by Tufts’ errors and built a lead that they coasted to victory. Jumbo errors were the story of the match, with a total of 27 hitting errors over the five sets.

In their second match of the day, a depleted Tufts team fell in four sets to a highly ranked and polished Millikin offense. Millikin had 50 kills with only 12 hitting errors compared to just 26 kills and 31 hitting errors for Tufts. Despite a nail-biting first set victory by the Jumbos 26–24, none of the final three sets were very close and Millikin appeared to finish off the match easily. Sophomore outside hitter Brigid Bell and Garrett led the offense for Tufts with six kills each, and Klimo finished with 17 digs.

Despite the team’s record on the weekend, Thompson was pleased with the growth she saw from her players.

“Our coaching staff was incredibly proud of the effort the girls put forth this weekend. We traveled to a tough tournament like that to be challenged consistently with each opponent and got exactly what we wanted,” Thompson said. “Our record from the weekend does not represent how much progress our team made as a unit. We served incredibly tough, our blocking improved tremendously and our back court defense was successful as well as a result. Offensively, our players saw that they are just as talented, if not more so than the teams across the net.”

Holz was named to the All-Tournament team for her efforts over the weekend. She put up a total of 27 kills and 23 blocks to go along with four service aces.

“Heather was such a presence on the court offensively and defensively and then really stood out for her serving as well,” Thompson said. “She served tough and consistently in some of the biggest matches and in order to preserve her serve she needed to play great defense … which she did! She put up some great digs to keep our team alive."

Up next Tufts will face Hamilton at home in Cousens Gymnasium on Friday. Holz described the team's mentality heading into the conference heavy portion of their season.

"Our mindset this year has been ‘Humble and Hungry.’ We have that all over our locker room … Each week we focus on a certain goal," Holz said. "Last week it was self improvement and other goals are building relationships on the team or focus."