By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
In the first game of the 2024 season, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team hosted Emmanuel College in front of a packed Blake Arena.
But for the Pride, and head coach Charlie Sullivan, this had the potential to be a special one.
Once Evan Costley put the nail in the coffin with a vicious kill from a Dylan Mulvaney assist, the Pride secured the three set win (25-19, 25-14, 25-16).
With the sweep, Sullivan became the tenth coach in NCAA men’s volleyball history to collect 500 wins
“He deserves it,” said middle blocker Chris Rouleau. “He means everything to the team. This guy, he pushes us everyday [and] he’s really the best volleyball coach I’ve ever had. Very happy to see it happen for him.”
After the game, the entire team presented Sullivan with a framed portrait to commemorate his 500th win, celebrating their legendary coach’s milestone.
“It’s a lot to do,” Sullivan said. “[There are] so many great people in the program. We’ve had a lot of good people through here.”
The performance on the floor for the Pride was very solid overall. The first-year students on the team had great days as Sam Levinson had 11 kills with five digs. Brennan Cutter also chipped in six kills while Ricardo Ortiz led the team in digs with six. Rouleau and Costley also had six kills of their own.
“It’s incredible [the freshman],” Rouleau said. “Those three guys [Levinson, Cutter, Ortiz] are not the only first years who’ve come in and made an impact. I think every single one of them has come in and pushed us in practice [and] been working hard all year. It’s really cool to see them come in at such a young age. The maturity they’ve shown is incredible.
Even outside of the freshman, the entire team as a whole is very young.
“There’s one person on our 22 player roster that has more than one year of college volleyball experience,” Sullivan said. “So we’re pretty much all first-years. So we’re really young.”
Even on the day of his 500th career win and a clean 3-0 sweep, Sullivan also recognizes that there is room for improvement.
“I think more importantly we’re just trying to run through our systems,” Sullivan said. “We [need to] get it smoothed out, get a little more efficient. I thought we made some improvements tonight which was good.”
“It [winning] feels good,” Rouleau said. “We went to California [last] weekend, good preparation for the upcoming season. It just feels good to get the rust out there and then come back here and have a great team win. It feels great to be back in Blake arena.”
The Pride travel to New York to take on St. Joseph’s on Jan. 20 at 4 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics