Friday, October 7, 2016

MIDD Tallies 3 Key Regional Wins Last Weekend

Last weekend was the first of a string of big weekends for us as we are headed into the meat of our Season.  We played Conn on Friday night, and then had a tri-match with Babson and UMass Boston, who was then #1 in New England.

BEFORE the weekend, however, we celebrated a big birthday for Brian on Thursday!  This big birthday meant I actually baked a home made cake, and the team highlighted the celebration with a list of the "Top 10 Things We Love About Brian!"  For a guy with a big sweet tooth, he said that list was even better than cake--nice job, ladies!

On Friday, we got off to a slow start against Conn on Friday night, dropping the first set, but powered back to take the next three straight sets for the 3-1 victory.  We had a trip in between sites, however, since we were playing in Boston the next day, so we had our picnic dinner en route on the bus, which was a new challenge.  A highlight of the weekend, in addition to our wins of course, was our home-made breakfast at Beth's house on Saturday morning!

It turned out that a home made breakfast was exactly what we needed as we went on to beat both Babson and UMass Boston that afternoon!  Babson was a tough match back and forth as we won the first and third sets heading into the 4th up 2-1 in sets.  We battled back and forth again, and found ourselves down 22-24 trying to stave off a 5th set.  After a time out to break the momentum, we sided out, sending Becca to the service line, where we then scored the next four points for the match victory 26-24.

UMass Boston played Babson before we did as both visiting teams played back to back, but our conditioning paid off for us as we maintained our strength and power into the 5th and deciding set of a long match.  After taking the first set 25-22, we lost the next two by only scoring 17 and 15 points respectively.  We regained our composure and momentum by taking the fourth set by a similar convincing margin 25-17, forcing the deciding 5th set.  We found ourselves down 0-4 to start the 5th set, and down 3-7 before siding out to bring Chellsa to the service line down 4-7.  She then served the next 11 serves in a row to take us to match point up 14-7 before they sided out on her 11th serve!  Isabel notched 7 kills in our last 12 points, including match point, and Chellsa had one ace in that stretch for the 15-9 win!

It was a long, tough weekend, but it was rewarding as we continue to improve and work on all things TEAM heading into the heart of our season!  We did a yoga class on Monday in place of practice to help take care of our bodies before getting back to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday leading into a big Conference weekend at home!

It's Parent's Weekend this weekend when we'll face both Bowdoin and Tufts in key Conference matches.  8pm tonight vs Bowdoin, and 2pm tomorrow vs Tufts, followed by Melanie's Phi Beta Kappa ceremony and then our Parent's Weekend Dinner at Flatbread!  Big weekend of FUN!  GO MIDD!!

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