10/3 vs. Salem 7:00 PM

10/5 @ Roanoke 6:30 PM

10/7 vs. Piedmont 3:30 PM

vs. Christopher Newport 7:30 PM

10/8 Semifinals 10:00AM/12:30 PM

Finals 3:00 PM

The Guilford Quaker Volleyball Team started last week looking to build upon its defeat of Chowan College. The young team has looked poised to play consistent volleyball for some time now, but has struggled with the mental side of the game for most of the season.

Guilford’s second match of the week was a home contest against a team it had already faced once this season, NC Wesleyan. The Lady Bishops looked sluggish from the long bus ride to Guilford. However, they are a team that has been together for a few years, and weren’t going to go down without a fight. The Quakers looked fresh and ready to have an exciting home match in front of a great crowd.

Guilford stumbled out of the gates early, once again finding out the hard way that if you don’t pass well, you don’t get to run a good offense. That was the difference between the two schools—NC Wesleyan, sluggish as they may have been, passed the ball well, as Guilford struggled to run their offense out of serve receive. The result was an 18-30 game one loss.

Guilford tightened up their passing in game two and showed that they were up to the task of passing serves. The Lady Bishops were still on the bus, and looked to be going through the motions. Game two proved to be a much closer contest, but with the same result as the first game—a 28-30 loss for the Quakers.

As Guilford stepped up its defense in the second game, the Lady Bishops countered with another veteran move. With their hitters unable to put the ball away, NC Wesleyan went to their tip and setter dump game.

Game three began closely contested as well, but as the twenty point barrier was neared by each team, NC Wesleyan again dug into its bag of tricks and again employed the tip and dump game. Unable to pick up these balls, Guilford went down in defeat, losing game three 23-30, and the match as well.

Friday’s practice was used to correct the errors made against the Lady Bishops. The Quakers continued to work on blocking, which has generated many touches and block kills. The ladies also worked on their rotation defense and more specifically tip coverage within those rotations. From a coaching standpoint, and as a spectator, one should have seen the difference between tip coverage from the NC Wesleyan game on Thursday to the ODAC match with Eastern Mennonite University Saturday.

Guilford lost the first game 21-30. Uh-oh. Panic? Desperation? Should we even play the next two games? We were loose in serve receive, the results of which were discussed above. We were getting beat by EMU’s slide attack; somehow the girls were over-playing an attack that generally goes to the same spot on the court. All the time. You could bet money on it. Vegas wouldn’t allow bets on it. It’s that predictable.

The solution? Fix serve receive so that our passes get to the setter spot and allow to run better offense. Don’t over-rotate on their slide attack, and you’ll pick it up.

Did the girls ever do what they were told? For those present, you witnessed a Quaker offensive explosion as Guilford had 16 kills on 31 swings with only two (!!!) errors. For those keeping score at home, that’s a .452 hitting percentage. End result—Guilford 30, EMU 18.

The momentum held for Guilford in the third game as the Quakers held off the Royals 30-25, and took a 2-1 advantage in games.

Eastern Mennonite came into the match with a 0-16 record. The Royals at times looked great, and at other times looked bad (remind you of any team in particular?). To their credit, they were not going down without a fight—and fight they would, to the very end, even causing extra volleyball to happen. The fourth game was tight. The Quakers prevailed 33-31, and won their first ODAC match!

Jones led all players with 45 assists. Leathern led all hitters with 19 kills. This was a total team effort. Right behind Leathern was Becher with 15 of her own kills, and Loeffler chipped in 11 kills.

Against EMU, three Quaker volleyball players recorded double-doubles (scoring in double figures in two statistical categories). Emily Becher recorded her third double-double (15 kills, 10 digs), while Kaci Loeffler (13 digs, 11 kills) and Becca Jones (45 assists, 10 digs) each turned the trick for the second time this season.

The Quakers will play in at least six matches this week. Beginning tomorrow, Salem comes to the Ragan-Brown Field House, then a road game at Roanoke. Finally, the week culminates with the Guilford Invitational tournament, as the Quakers play host to Christopher Newport, Piedmont, Chowan, Maryville, and Bridgewater.

The Sports Information Office at Guilford, under the direction of Dave Walters and assisted by Matt Grasso has added the players’ individual headshots to the Roster section of the Guilford College Volleyball website, and updated the bios of each player.

As always, more information, including complete match statistics can be found on the website.