By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
Coming into spring break, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team suffered a tough defeat to SUNY New Paltz in five sets, and many believed New Paltz to be serious underdogs in the affair.
Coming out of break, the No. 7 ranked Springfield were able to bounce back with a very convincing win over Russell Sage in three sets (25-11, 25-15, 25-8) and another solid win against Hunter (25-11, 25-17, 25-21) in a Tri Match on Saturday, Mar. 23, to give them wins 16 and 17 on the season.
“I think more importantly tonight we just came back from break [and] committed to working on a couple of things,” said Pride head coach Charlie Sullivan. “We saw them come to fruition today which was really nice.”
In the first game, the Pride completely dominated from start to finish. On top of this, the Pride rolled out a different starting lineup than they’ve been used to rolling out. Carter Durivage, Cole Kallick, James Browning, Tyler Simmons, Joel DeCamp and Noah and Ethan Weislo all got the starting nod while typical starters like Dylan Mulvaney, Chris Rouleau, Sam Levinson and others didn’t play a single minute.
“They’ve doing a good job,” Sullivan said. “They’ve been doing a good job in practice, playing well and they earned their shot.”
Set one saw the Pride separate themselves from the Gators early on, where they went on a 13-0 run and never looked back for the rest of the game. The Pride also had multiple runs of four to five points throughout sets two and three, and proved to the fans in Blake Arena that they were the better team that day. Noah Weislo led the team in kills with eight in the affair, with Carter Durivage also having an impressive outing with seven. First-year Cole Kallick had three aces all in the first set and Ethan Weislo led the team with 20 assists.
“I thought it was a really good group effort,” Sullivan said. “Really well put together at a consistent level of play.”
It was aces galore for the Pride in the start of game number two on the day against Hunter, as they scored three of their first five points on aces (two from Giancarlo Carrion, one from Ethan Walters). The Pride showed throughout the rest of the set why they’re considered the seventh ranked team in the country, as they went on a 7-0 run and cruised past Hunter in set one. Chris Rouleau played a huge role in the set victory delivering four kills while Walters and Carrion both collected another ace en route to a 25-11 score.
Set two however started out very differently for the Pride. Early on, the Pride found themselves with only a slim lead at 7-6 and looked to find a way where they could pull away and go on one those runs they are so accustomed to going on. The Pride fought hard through the next couple of rallies. After an ace from Ethan Weislo knotted up the score at 10, the Pride started to find some momentum scoring five of the next six rallies with all Springfield points coming in a row. To this point, the Pride were able to find a comfortable lead throughout the game, and were able finish Hunter off 25-18. Rouleau added another four kills to his name while Ethan Weislo also had two aces, with the second being the nail in the coffin for Hunter.
In a win or go home set for Hunter, the Hawks managed to hang in there with the Pride keeping the score close at 8-8. Hunter would continue to battle and stay within striking distance before Springfield would continue to hit Hunter with their relentless offense attack. The Pride would close out the set in the end and seal the game on a kill from Carrion, ending the day with two more wins in the win column from when the day started.
The Pride will travel to Quincy, Mass., on Wednesday to take on Eastern Nazarene at 6 p.m. The next game in Blake Arena will be played on Apr. 3, hosting MIT at 6 p.m.