Williamstown, MA - Williams College (10-5, 3-4 NESCAC) took on Trinity College (10-5, 3-3 NESCAC) and fell 3-0 to their NESCAC opponent.
The Ephs fell behind early in the third set, with senior Margaret McCarthy contributing four kills in the span of five points to put Trinity ahead 7-3. With the gap later stretched to 10-3, Williams finally came alive and won eight of the next ten points to pull within one at 12-11. With the score later tied at 17-17, the Bantams won four in a row to push ahead to 21-17. The teams traded points back and forth until sophomore
Annaliese Fricke and first year
Keely Campuzano contributed two pivotal kills each to tie the score at 23-23. However, Trinity won the next two points to close out the third set 25-23 and clinch the match.
The Ephs got off to a slow start in the first set as the Bantams jumped out to an early 7-0 lead. Williams finally got their first point on the board with a kill from sophomore
Helen Qian then immediately followed that up with an ace from
Celia Adams, but Trinity continued to push their advantage to 18-8. Although the Ephs appeared to be making a late comeback attempt following a timeout, it was simply too little too late, and Trinity eventually secured the first set 25-15.
Despite losing the first two points of the second set, the Ephs quickly put that behind them and built a 9-6 lead, forcing Trinity to call a timeout. Senior
Celia Adams put away her fourth kill of the set to maintain the Williams lead at 17-15, but Trinity came up with three points in a row to take an 18-17 lead, their first since being up 2-1. The two teams battled back and forth, and it was anyone's game after a
Keely Campuzano kill tied the score at 23-23. It was the Bantams who came out on top, claiming the second set 25-23 after a kill and an error from the Ephs.
Trinity leaders were: junior Eva Lekovic with 13 kills, sophomore Caroline Howell with 25 assists, and first year Scarlett Jago with 11 digs. Williams leaders were:
Keely Campuzano with 8 kills, senior
Lauren Kauppila with 23 assists, and junior
Sidra Wohlwend with 9 digs.
Reflecting on the loss, Eph head coach
Christi Kelsey commented, "We saw some really great things this weekend, we had a tough time last weekend but the team had a great week of practice and played our best volleyball yet last night. I think this was another gut check for us about how we're going to have to put these weekends together, two or three days in a row. Especially when we get into conference championship weekend and NCAAs potentially, there's no easy matches left on the schedule so being able to be consistent and put together the kinds of performances we had last night, and even sets two and three today some of the pieces were still very good. We're just gonna get back at it at practice on Monday and have another opportunity to play next weekend!"
The Ephs have their next match against Tufts University in Medford, MA on Friday, October 13th at 7:30pm EST.
