By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
It’s the final home tri-match of the season for the Springfield College men’s volleyball team, and the score is 24-22 in the fourth set. No. 3 ranked Springfield is just one point away from defeating No. 2 ranked and undefeated Southern Virginia for potentially the Pride’s biggest win of the season.
Domino Wishart serves it away for Springfield. The ball finds itself in position for Southern Virginia’s Christian Sheaffer, as Dylan Mulvaney and Chris Rouleau lay on the other side of the net, getting ready to block the ball. Placed on the left side of the floor, Shaeffer goes up for a match-extending kill, firing the ball over the net and into the outstretched arms of Mulvaney and Rouleau. They were successful in their block attempt, getting a hand on the ball and sending it back to the other side of the net.
The ball dropped down and the crowd erupted. The team swarmed Rouleau, and Mulvaney ran over to give head coach Charlie Sullivan a hug. Springfield just knocked off one of the biggest powerhouses in college volleyball, 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 15-25, 25-22).
“We out-blocked them, which I don’t think a team has this year,” said Pride head coach Charlie Sullivan. “I think that was a big factor of the match.”
To finish off the day, the Pride defeated St. Joseph’s in four sets (25-13, 25-18, 24-26, 25-23) to move to 21-2 on the season, as they gear up for a run at a national championship.
Even though Southern Virginia did lose in four sets, every set was very close. The first set was the most competitive, as Southern Virginia held Springfield to just a single three point streak. However, the Pride played consistent volleyball throughout the set, with Jake DesLauriers chipping in five kills and Sam Levinson delivering three of his own. Springfield’s 3-0 streak came late into the set as well, with a service error and two attack errors from Southern Virginia helping the Pride win the opening set.
Now up 1-0, Springfield maintained a lead through the front half of the set, with a handful of service errors and kills from Rouleau, Levinson, Mulvaney and Carter Durivage helping the Pride. With Springfield narrowly holding onto an 11-10 lead, Durivage dialed up a kill before the Knights committed five straight attack errors, giving Springfield a healthy 17-10 advantage.
A late rally by Southern Virginia on the back of multiple kills from Shaeffer and attack errors by Springfield was not enough, as the Pride held on and were in the driver’s seat going into the third set.
With Southern Virginia dominating the third set on the back of numerous streaks of two points or more with the biggest one being five, the Pride looked to bounce back in the fourth frame.
Southern Virginia got out to an early lead, holding an 11-6 advantage. From this point though, Springfield scored the next six points in a row, completely flipping the script of the set.
This was highlighted by three kills from Levinson and another kill from DesLauriers. Springfield continued to maintain its slight lead, as two more 3 point runs helped Springfield collect arguably its biggest win of the year.
In the second game, Springfield took care of business as usual. The two teams traded service errors to start before DesLauriers delivered a kill which was immediately followed with an ace from Carrion. Will Kirchhoff then delivered a kill, as Springfield was off and running early. Springfield dropped the next point, but got the next three points in the row, where Kirchhoff had two more kills.
This put them up 7-2, as they continued to cruise to another dominant set victory. The Pride had numerous aces during this span from DesLauriers and Mulvaney, as well as some big kills from Brennan Cutter and others. Springfield also had three streaks of three or more points in this span, as St. Joseph’s looked outmatched early on.
Going into the second set, St. Joseph went up 2-0 before Springfield answered right back with a kill from Cutter, and two attacks in a row from Tyler Anderson, both coming off blocks from Kirchhoff. Carrion capped off the streak with an ace, as Springfield found themselves back up early, 4-2. Carrion gave up the rally on a service error, but Springfeld answered right back with kills from Kirchhoff and Levinson, with a Levinson ace shooting the Pride up 7-3.
Springfield extended its lead to 10-5, as the Pride then committed a service error and two attack errors, allowing the Golden Eagles to cut it to 10-8 before Springfield answered right back with three points of their own. The two teams then each scored two in a row, and flip flopped points for a little bit, with Springfield progressively inching closer to another set win. With the score now 16-12, Springfield scored the next six of seven points, as it was one set away from winning yet another game.
However, in the third set, St. Joseph’s was able to keep it close through the first half of the set, and even took a 15-12 lead midway through. The teams essentially traded points until the score was 9-9, where the Golden Eagles got two points in a row off attack errors from DesLauriers and Levinson. The Golden Eagles also got another two point streak later on, with kills from Cole Violi and AJ Esposito. St. Joseph’s largest lead of the set was three points, as Springfield looked to come back from the 20-17 deficit.
This is where Springfield started to rally back, as it got a big kill from Joey Priesche before Esposito and Violi committed attack errors, tying the game at 20. St. Joseph’s got the next point off a kill from Esposito, before Springfield’s libero Ricardo Ortiz got a kill off of a dig which went over the net and hit the floor. Esposito committed another attack error off a block from Preische and Cutter, giving Springfield the 22-21 lead.
However, the Golden Eagles retook the lead, as Logan Meyer delivered a kill and Joey Preische delivered an attack error. Springfield later saw the game tied at 24, where Sam Levinson committed back-to-back attack errors to give the Golden Eagles life.
“We had some new guys in there, [so we’re] just getting better all the time,” Sullivan said.
Springfield started out hot in the fourth set, getting out to a 6-2 lead before the Golden Eagles rallied back and tied the score at eight. Continuing to battle and claw their way through the set, Springfield went on another 3-0 streak where it got two kills from Preische and a kill from Cutter. Holding onto a slight 17-16 lead, St. Josephs scored two in a row to retake the lead. Coming down to the wire, Springfield eventually tied the score at 20, and pushed its way to a 25-23 win, its 21st of the year.
Springfield will play Rivier in its next game at Blake Arena on April 2.