By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
After defeating SUNY New Paltz last Thursday in its first home game of the year, winning three sets to one, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team hosted its first tri-match of the season. Coming in as the No. 7 ranked team according to the AVCA coaches poll, Springfield played MIT in the first game and Nichols College in the second game. The Pride beat MIT 3-0 (25-20, 25-16, 25-18) and beat Nichols 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-23), moving Springfield up to 8-1 on the year.
“They’re just a good group of guys,” Pride Head Coach Charlie Sullivan said. “They’re really dedicated and working hard. Just very coachable. [They’re] getting better and I think we have a long way to go too.”
MIT showed flashes against the always-tough Pride team in the day’s first game. The first set showed this, as they rallied down 8-5 early in the first set to tie the set at 8. Springfield and MIT went back and forth, trading points and remaining tied until midway through the set. Once tied at 14-14 after a kill by Engineers Grant Oh, the Pride scored five of the next six points, highlighted with an ace by Joey Preische and kills by Brennan Cutter and Chris Rouleau. A Dylan Mulvaney ace sealed the deal on the first set, winning 25-20.
Similar to the second set, Springfield raced out to an early lead before MIT rallied back. Up 10-6, MIT scored the following five points in a row, taking the lead 11-10. Tied at 15, Springfield began to run away with the game. After Sam Levinson delivered a kill and Chris Rouleau provided back-to-back aces, Rouleau delivered a service error, which was the last point Springfield gave up. Now 18-16 Springfield, Preische delivered two kills, with Mulvaney having two aces of his own to help give the Pride a 2-0 lead.
Unlike the first two sets, the Pride got an early lead but never let MIT tie it up. While Levinson delivered an attack error to start, Levinson immediately followed it up with a kill before the Pride scored three consecutive points. While MIT drew close at some points, Springfield always held at least a one-point cushion. The set started and ended with Levinson, who delivered an ace to sweep the Engineers officially.
Moving over to the second game, Nichols got a quick 4-2 lead to start, and the game would stay close through the entire set. With the score tied at 11, Springfield started slowly pulling away, finding themselves with a 20-17 lead late in the set. After Nichols gave the Pride a point off of a service error, Will Kirchoff delivered back-to-back aces to help people Springfield to their fourth set victory of the night, winning the set 25-19 and going to 1-0.
“He’s been working hard in practice,” Sullivan said. “Does a good job so [he] got a shot and took advantage.”
Nichols found themselves with a slight lead very early on in the second set up 3-1, before Springfield yet again came to tie the set at five a piece. Later tied at 11, Springfield started to pull away with the lead, slowly but surely. After another big ace by Kirchoff to put them up 15-12, Springfield began to gradually grow their lead again, highlighted by junior Jake DesLauriers delivering back-to-back aces with another one on top of that attack error in Nichols’ Jack Normandin. Springfield cruised to another convincing set victory, 25-15.
Looking to sweep the tri-match and come away with two victories in one day, Nichols seemed outmatched by the No. 7 ranked Springfield. While Springfield got out to a comfortable lead and looked to seal the third set quickly, Nichols roared back. Down 19-14, Nichols scored the next eight of 10 points, finding themselves up 22-21. Later, they found themselves tied at 23-23, and an attack error by Nichols’ Adam Vincent and a kill by Rouleau sealed the game for Springfield.
Springfield plays the No. 1 ranked team in New York University next Friday at 8:15 in the Morgan Classic, an annual event held at Springfield College. After these two wins in the tri-match, Sullivan knows it is going to take an excellent performance from his team to win that game.
“We have to play a lot smoother,” Sullivan said. “Just less errors. So we’ll see.”