By: Noah Nunez
General Reporter
The women’s volleyball team faced defeat in the hands of Bentley University on Friday, Oct. 16 after a long struggle to try and fight them off.
The skill of Bentley was not lost on Head Coach Lisa Barbaro, but she and the Owls were still confident going into the game, hoping to come out the other side of a difficult match on top.
“We’ve been trying to work hard all this week to just prepare. Bentley’s a really great team. We’re a good team too, and we knew it was going to be a tough matchup, but we were feeling pretty good, feeling ready for it,” Barbaro said.
The game kicked off with a rather tight back-and-forth from both teams, leaving very little space for the Owls to take a lead. This eventually led to Bentley taking the set 25-27.
To right side hitter Sydney Bennett, a graduate, moments like these can lead to the spiraling out of the team as they get in their own heads and lose their confidence.
“As soon as we get down a couple points, we tend to get in our heads, and then we go down even more points, and we’re trying to dig ourselves out of a hole.” Bennett said.
Even with the Owls picking up the third set during the game, it was not enough to stave off the eventual loss the team faced.
But, throughout the game, the Owls never gave in or backed down.
Even if the sets ended up sided in Bentley’s favor, they would get back up due to what middle blocker Sarah Stark, a senior, believed to be a pure drive to win.
“We just all really want to win. We all play it really hard every game, and we just try to make the next step better than the last one,” Stark said. “We’re just gonna use this as motivation for our next game.”
Each loss is a lesson, and the lesson learned by the Owls tonight is that they have room not only to improve but to change as they plan to take whatever steps are needed to win.
“Listen there’s still a lot of growth opportunities for us as a team. We mixed the lineups a little bit; we had some different contributions from some different people, so I think it’s just for us getting back in the gym and getting back to our preparations and just figuring out areas that we can get stronger at,” Barbaro said.
Even though losses seen on a stat sheet may tick up one after another, that does not mean nothing was gained. The Owls learned and they will hopefully bring it forward.
