Women's Volleyball battered in three losses, need to control mental lapses, want the win

After dropping three straight matches this week to Carlow, Muskingum and Hiram Colleges, the Oberlin Volleyball team is frustrated.

Muskingum buried the Yeowomen in three straight games, 15-2, 15-7, and 15-3. "Muskingum was good," said Coach Suzanne Garland. "They whopped us."

Both coaches and players agree that the Yeowomen possessed the physical skills to beat Carlow and Hiram. They also agree that the team has mental lapses during key moments in matches.

Sometimes one player will be out of rotation, and the focus of the other five players on the court shifts to the mistake - one point for the opposition. Other times two players will call for the ball. Both hesitate - another point for the other team.

Picture, for example, a match held Saturday in Phillips gym. The Yeowomen dropped three straight games against the Carlow Celtics with the scores of 13-15, 7-15, and 12-15. For a majority of the time, it was a nail-biting and intense match.

In the third game, for a good five minutes or so the score settled at 11-11. In a sport where a point can be scored in a single second, five minutes is a long time.

Carlow had the serve. After a long series of attempts made back and forth between the two sides of the net, senior Carissa Bennett hit the ball where no Carlow player could reach. Oberlin had earned the serve. The court got noisy. The whistle blew and started another long rally, this time ending in Carlow's favor.

Everyone yelled to psyche each other up - Carlow trying to seal a win for their record, Oberlin doing everything they could to stop them. Well, not quite everything. This is where the mental lapse comes in. "We're in there with the other team then a lapse happens and we drop two or three points," Garland said.

This phenomenon might not be so frustrating for the Yeowomen if there was absolutely no hope, if there was no evidence that the team can pull it together under pressure. But there is. Picture another match hosted by Oberlin on Tuesday night against the Hiram Terriers. Oberlin lost the first two games, 15-11 and 15-5.

It seemed as though they were going to lose the third game as well, after Hiram jumped ahead 9-2. But something clicked. "They had nothing to lose," said student assistant sophomore Sam Chung. "They just went out there and threw their hearts and their bodies into it."

Oberlin added five or six in a row to their score. In that stretch of time, there were no rotation errors, no communication mistakes - in short, as Chung put it, "They were just doing it." The Yeowomen hung on and finally won the lead. The score was 16-15.

Garland called a time out, and told junior Katie Ruth to "just go for [a jump serve]," said first-year Sarah Breon. Ruth did just that, and blasted a serve passed the Hiram players. "Everyone was really excited," Breon said. Yeowomen take the game, 17-15.

That glory did not carry the Yeowomen into a match win, however. Hiram claimed the victory in the fourth game, 15-13.

With their problems now apparent, the team spent Wednesday practice watching videos of a match and then talking about what needs to be done to overcome its aversion of playing when the heat is on. "In a match we are more reactive than proactive," said senior Cerissa Tanner. "We lose because we let ourselves lose. That's what's so frustrating."

Both Garland and players agree that the practice session on Wednesday was valuable. Whether or not it will yield results will become apparent this weekend when they play University of Pennsylvania-Greensburg and UP-Johnstown on a road trip this Saturday.