Williamstown, MA - Williams College (11-7) hosted No. 19 MIT (22-3) in their first action of the New England Challenge, and ultimately came up short in a 3-0 loss.
The third set saw Williams hold a slim advantage over MIT in much of the early going, but the Engineers used an 8-2 run to build a 14-9 lead. The Ephs got back on the board with with a kill from sophomore
Sydney Eyestone but were unable to close the gap beyond that as MIT continued to inch towards the finish line. Senior
Celia Adams got the Ephs back within six points at 23-17, but the Engineers closed out the final set 25-17 with back to back kills.Â
The Ephs got off to a slow start as the Engineers jumped out to an early 6-1 advantage in the first set, but Williams won the next four points in a row to trim the deficit to one, capped off by a double block from
Celia Adams and senior
Caroline Tosolini. MIT was able to hold onto their slim lead for a while until Williams tied the score at 11-11 with a thunderous kill from senior
Marit Hoyem. The Engineers briefly retook the lead but Williams was able to earn their first lead of the match at 13-12 after an MIT service error followed by an ace from first year
Tatum Baker. Winning five of the next seven points allowed the Engineers to build an 18-15 lead, where the Ephs decided to call a timeout. However, Williams came out of the stoppage on fire, winning the next four points in a row to force the Engineers to call a timeout of their own, suddenly down 19-18. MIT also used their own timeout well though, and surged to claim the first 25-21.
Although Williams led 4-3 early on in the second set, MIT quickly established an 11-5 advantage by winning eight of the next nine points, pressuring the Ephs to call a timeout. After the two teams traded 4-0 runs, the Ephs slowly worked their way back into the est, tying the score at 19-19 with a kill from
Caroline Tosolini. However, the Engineers once again came up with a late run to secure the second set 25-21.
MIT leaders were: junior Ella Gragg with 10 kills, senior Emily Cheng with 31 assists, and Ella Gragg with 15 digs. Williams leaders were:
Celia Adams with 7 kills, senior
Lauren Kauppila and first year
Morgan Daetz with 12 assists each, and junior
Sidra Wohlwend with 13 digs.
Reflecting on the loss to the Engineers, Eph head coach
Christi Kelsey commented, "I thought we did several things really well tonight…first and foremost I think our team did a really strong job controlling the serve and pass game. We were aggressive behind the service line which helped us keep MIT out of rhythm a bit for their attackers. We also passed really well too in serve receive to give ourselves more options offensively. Unfortunately, we made a few too many unforced errors overall and especially in the first two sets when we had opportunities to pull away and then did not take care of the ball as well as we could. To MIT's credit, they kept putting the pressure on us when it mattered and were able to battle back to take control the match. Overall, some really positive things to build on for tomorrow, and looking forward to another chance to play!"
The Ephs will be back in action at 11:00 AM EST when they host Babson College on Court 2 of Chandler Gymnasium in the second round of matches for the New England Challenge.
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