The volleyball team hit the road for a pair of matches this past weekend, travelling to Colgate University on Friday and Army West Point on Saturday. The Leopards lost both matches 3-0.
The Leopards (1-3 Patriot League, 3-11 overall) struggled to keep up with Colgate (4-0 Patriot League, 9-5 overall), with the Raiders boasting a historically successful program, including multiple four-year starters and deep runs in the conference tournament.
Colgate jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first set. While the Leopards came back in 3-4 point spurts, the Raiders continued to pull away, eventually taking a 25-14 victory. The same was true for the second set — despite freshman right-side hitter Jada Aksu setting a career high of seven kills — as Colgate won 25-11.
In the third frame, the Leopards pulled ahead with a 21-15 lead, but the reigning Patriot League champions went on a 9-3 run to tie the score at 24. Back-to-back kills helped Colgate win 28-26 and seal the sweep.
“After looking at the film, looking at the tape and breaking it down, it feels like you played worse than you did in the moment,” head coach CJ Werneke said. “When you go and analyze them, do an assessment, we played pretty well.”
The Leopards stayed neck-and-neck with Army (3-1 Patriot League, 9-4 overall) in all three sets, but failed to close out in the last few points of each.
The Maroon and White kicked off the opening set with a 7-4 lead, but slowly ceded the advantage to Army. Despite a series of late-game Black Knight errors, Army held on to win 25-20.
“We just need to keep working towards being more consistent in our scoring and more consistent in the serve and pass game,” sophomore outside hitter Destiny McKenzie said.
Set two saw Army quickly jump out to a 15-8 lead, and while the Leopards clawed back to bring the score within three, it was not enough to complete the comeback.
Down 2-0, the Leopards fought back in set three, bringing it to 14 apiece. However, a 6-0 run from the Black Knights was too much for the Leopards to overcome as they lost the final set 25-19.
Not being able to close out sets has plagued the Maroon and White this season, as they have led or been in close competition throughout the first 20 points in several matches before faltering at the end.
“We couldn’t finish,” Werneke said. “We made a couple of unforced errors, untimely mistakes and Army capitalized on it.”
Werneke added that to address this ongoing issue, the Leopards have been running a drill in practice that he calls “20-to-close,” where both sides start at 20-20 and try to eke out a victory.
“It really emphasizes clean volleyball and eliminating unforced errors or mistakes,” he said.
The Leopards will host a pair of Patriot League matches this weekend, clashing against Loyola Maryland University (2-2 Patriot League, 4-9 overall) on Friday and the Naval Academy (1-3 Patriot League, 5-8 overall) on Saturday.