By Liam Reilly
@liampreilly852
The Springfield College women’s volleyball team is back for its 54th season in program history, looking to make the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament for the third straight year. Starting 7-2 on the year, the Pride are poised to be competitive once again.
Several seniors from last year’s team such as Natalie Billet, Riley Donahue and Morgan Stafford have all graduated, leaving a multitude of opportunities open for last year’s underclassmen. Head coach Moira Long has already seen several members of the team step up not only as players, but leaders too.
“[Junior] Tori [Colosimo] and [senior] Emily [Keaveney] are our captains and they’ve done a great job since the spring of bringing our team together, making sure our culture is really strong and they’ve done a good job on and off the court with leading,” Long said. “Olivia Nealy stepped into the role of libero and is doing a really great job. Everybody else is filling in gaps and doing everything they can to make sure that our new players feel welcomed, connected and understand our standards.”
When it comes to choosing captains, the women’s volleyball program speaks in team meetings of what the team needs. Players then had the opportunity to nominate someone for captain and unanimously chose Colosimo and Keaveney to lead the team. The duo want the team to know that just because they’re captains, that doesn’t mean anyone else can’t speak up.
“We’re named captain, but everyone else has an opportunity to say something,” Keaveney said. “At the end of the day we are that role but everyone does fit that role and has the same opportunities to step up and talk.”
“It’s an opportunity to lead by example,” Colosimo said. “We all have an opportunity to say things and we all fit a role on our team. Seniority doesn’t matter on our team, everyone has a voice and everyone should be using that voice.”
With seven players on the team departing last spring and five first-years joining the team along with an entirely new assistant coaching staff, Springfield needed to build chemistry over the offseason. Senior Megan Kirtyan developed groups called families that combined returning players with the first-year players. The goal of the families was to establish relationships with the first-years to have everyone on the same page.
Chemistry-building was a theme of the Pride’s first practice, with the team doing an ice breaker to shake off any day one nerves. The activity involved the team writing three facts about themselves that nobody would know, crumbling it up and then having a snowball fight with them. Once the time was up, they would pick up the closest paper and try to find the person that matched the fact. At the end of the ice breaker, the team shared in a circle what the three facts were and shared their stories with each other.
Last weekend, Springfield took a trip to Pennsylvania to compete in the Haverford Invitational. The Pride first took on Haverford Friday night and traded sets until the Fords took the fifth set 15-13. Despite the loss, Long was optimistic about the team going forward.
“I think we have a team that really battles,” Long said. “Haverford is a very good team and we had our opportunities to win. We were up 13-12 and just weren’t aggressive in the last three points like we needed to be. I think that’s a little bit of inexperience, but the good news is those players have that experience and we’re gonna learn from it.”
Springfield faced off against Scranton the next morning and lost 3-0 after Scranton built long runs in each set. Soon after the loss to Scranton, the Pride sought a tournament win against Lynchburg and bounced back with a sweep over the Hornets. Seeing her squad’s resilience after the previous match was key for Long.
“I think their ability to respond in that moment of immediately shifting gears and be like ‘No, this is how we have to approach the game’ was a huge takeaway,” Long said. “We’re just learning right now, we know how to play volleyball, we know how to do those things but how do we do it together? How do we respond in tough moments and how do we push through those tough moments. The outcome wasn’t what we wanted but we learned a lot, and I think that’s an exciting thing.”
Following the Haverford Invitational, the Pride swept a tri-match in Hartford against Trinity and UMass Boston, and then defeated Endicott in straight sets.
They will travel to Hoboken, New Jersey on Sept. 19 to play in the Stevens Quad, and Springfield plays its next home match on Sept. 27 against WPI.
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics.