Women's volleyball ends on inspired note season record stands at 2-29

This is a story you hear quite frequently in the world of sports. A team with talent, with the ability to win, just can't win. The team has moments, of course, moments of no-looking-back-we-played-our-guts-out glory. These moments are there to savor. But from time to time the moment wears off and you are forced to reflect on your record. In the case of the women's volleyball team, it is 2-29.

The team has to ask itself time and time again, "What will it take to win? When will it happen?" And they answer, time and time again, that they have mental lapses during matches that cost too many points for Oberlin to recover. The key is to focus, one play at a time.

The truth is that there is no easy answer, no step-by-step recipe on how to climb to a win. As sophomore Jill Brockelman put it, "Our record is something I don't understand. I think we can be a more consistent team. At times no one misses. Everyone is intense," she said. "Then a few mistakes trigger lapses in the score."

Since a win in the second week of the season, the Yeowomen have not won a match. This includes losses to seven conference opponents within the past three weeks. They have set a pattern for themselves, and high moments are rarely breaking that pattern.

On Wednesday night, the Yeowomen faced the Allegheny Gators on home court for the season's finale. Perhaps this fired up senior Carissa Bennett even more than usual. Teammates said in unison, "[Bennett] had an amazing game."

Oberlin dropped the first game 15-6. The score stood still for long stretches of time: first, at 3-3. Long rallies ended in one team's favor, then the other. Serve - rally - finally, a point. The score was 4-4.

Another long rally ended with Allegheny on top. But without scoring, the Gators lost service to Oberlin. The two teams played like two teams in their peak competitive modes play - an endless tug of war.

But after the score stayed stagnant with five points each, Oberlin fell back into its pattern. Mental focus of the team dwindled, and the Yeowomen gave up points that lead to a 15-6 win for Allegheny. That was game one.

Head Coach Suzanne Garland recalls telling the team before the second game, "Can't you see now that for a long, long time it was 3-3, 4-4, then 5-5? Then there was that three point jump [for the other team]. Just try to creep up one point in there." The Yeowomen did more than get one point.

In the second game, the Oberlin volleyball team played like it never had before. "It was really strange," said senior Cerissa Tanner. "The game we won was like a different match." During game two, Oberlin was a team people make movies about - the Hoosiers with an unquenchable thirst for a victory.

"Everybody was having so much fun. People weren't holding anything back. It was the last game. We might as well pour everything into it," said Tanner. Oberlin took the game, 15-6.

For whatever reason, though, the Yeowomen could not pull off the same performance in the following games. Allegheny won the next two games, 15-6 and 15-3.

Garland stresses that the team has made improvements "in little things," she said. Communication became stronger. Individual skills improved. Serves as a whole became more on target.

Tanner, the team's setter, had never set before this season. She recognizes gaining more and more control of where she set the balls, as the season went on. Teammates noticed that junior Katie Ruth no longer seems reluctant in worry of missing, when the coach signals for her to hit a jump serve.

They focus on one match at a time, then one play at a time. They still have their lapses, and they still have their highs. This has been the story of the women's volleyball team. And in the final match the team sneaked in a little bit of magic - last -game adrenaline rushing through Phillips gym, at least for a while.