By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
The Springfield College men’s volleyball team has been a force to be reckoned with. After dropping the first game of the season in Calif. the Pride have won their last 13 games, boast an undefeated record at home (7-0), and were undefeated against Division III opponents. However, the winning streak and undefeated record came crashing down Saturday night in Blake Arena.
The Pride faced arguably their best opponent of the entire season this season facing the daunting No. 2 Stevens Institute of Technology. The Ducks took down the Pride in a gentleman’s sweep (25-23, 25-16, 23-25, 23-25), dropping the Pride’s record to 13-2.
“We just gotta reflect on the past and process we went through to get here,” said Pride head coach Charlie Sullivan. “I think there’s always pluses and minuses to be taken away [from every game].”
Koby Sherman had himself a field day in Blake Arena, collecting a total of 24 kills with a hitting percentage of .477. Percy Bickford also made some very important contributions on the offensive end with 14 kills, while Louden Moran also had three aces.
For the Pride, it’s been a similar cast of characters doing most of the offensive damage, and the same rang true tonight. Sam Levinson and Chris Rouleau both had 12 kills each, with Levinson having to sit out the final points of the fourth set due to an apparent knee injury. Dylan Mulvaney also had a great game with 35 assists and three aces, but it wasn’t enough to take down the Ducks.
From the jump, Springfield seemed to have a hard time separating themselves in any given set. Any time the Pride jumped out to a lead, Stevens countered right back, keeping themselves within striking distance the entire time.
In set one, the Pride found themselves victorious, but had to play from behind early after getting down 7-2. The Pride were forced to grind their way through that set, with the highlight of the set coming from back-to-back aces from Giancarlo Carrion to give the Pride a 17-14 lead at the time. Stevens countered back pushing it to a 21-21 tie where an Ethan Walters kill was what put the Ducks out of their misery.
The second set saw Stevens jump on Springfield early on and they wouldn’t relinquish the lead with multiple kills and attack errors plaguing the team. Stevens grew the lead as the frame progressed, at one point being up 21-11. The Pride made a nice little rally toward the end to try and make it competitive but ultimately lost the set, tying the game at 1-1.
Sets three and four both played out very similar to one another also. Down 23-15 in set three and 23-19 in set four, both sets the Pride made very spirited comebacks in hopes of getting another set victory under their belt. However, a service error by Chris Rouleau in the final play of set three and a kill by Stevens’ Nathan Lancia ended each of their unsuccessful comeback attempts.
Reflecting on the game and everything that happened, Sullivan recognizes that the team needs to do better going into their next game against Nichols College on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in front of the Springfield faithful.
“We got to prepare better, for sure,” Sullivan said.\
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics