Keene State Volleyball had its first official games on Friday, August 29 and Saturday, August 30 as part of the Springfield College Invitational tournament. The team came back to the nest with two wins in three games to start the season.
The first game on Friday was against Rivier University from Nashua, N.H., and Keene State started off their season with a 3-1 win against the team.
The first set was taken by Rivier, ending with a 25-15 score. Although 18 of their points came from offensive errors made by the Owls, they made seven of their 15 points with kills, the top hitters being senior Gigi Stake with three points and junior Sarah Bartels with two points.
The second set ended much differently as the Owls won with a score of 25-12, making a comeback as the Raiders gave the Owls their first four points from errors. After that run Keene State converted kill after kill, not letting Rivier score for the last eight points in the set. The set ended with a kill from junior Colleen Fraser, who smashed four of the team’s nine kills, with an assist from junior setter Alexis Small. She had six assists in the second set.
After the teams remained close for the set, it ended with KSC on top 25-23. Stake got the winning kill of the set, her fourth. The team also had eight service aces, with sophomore libero Delia Ryan leading with three and sophomore Marina Miller with two.
Keene State took home its first win of the official season, winning the final set with a score of 25-15. With the most kills in one set, Bartels had six and Miller had five, totaling in 11 out of the teams 17 kills. Small ended the match with 20 assists with five in the last set, and first-year setter Ava Harkins got six in the last set, totaling 10 assists in her first official game.
The Owls saw similar success in their next game against the Owls of Westfield State University the next day, winning 3-1.
After staying close for the first set, Keene State won the first set with a score of 26-24. The team had 17 kills, Stake with seven, senior Annaliese Ruberg with three and Fraser with four, two of those being the kills to win the set. Harkins ended the set with eight assists and Small with seven.
The second set started with another close score, but after a couple streaks of serve aces they got enough of an advantage to win 25-17. They scored five service aces, two from Miller and Harkins and one from Ryan, along with 11 kills. Small had another seven assists and Harkins had four.
The Owls of Westfield State were not ready to lose, and they won the third set 25-21 after maintaining a few-point lead near the beginning of the set and closer to the end. Despite Small scoring a service ace for the first point, Westfield State took the next three with back-to-back kills from senior Hanna Nihill.
Ryan had three service aces and Small had two, and there were a total of ten kills in the set. There was also a block a little over halfway through the set by Fraser and Rudberg.
After a battle of the Owls, Keene State came out on top after the fourth set with a win. Westfield quickly started getting kills, keeping a good gap in the score with streaks of points of their own until closer to the end of the set at a score of 17-12.
From there, a few streaks of Owl offensive points and errors from Westfield allowed Keene to overtake them, winning 25-23 and bringing them their second win of the tournament.
Despite not having any assists prior in the game, Miller ended up with two in the last set, and Bartels and Taylor each with one. Both Ruberg and Small ended up with two service aces as well.
Stake ended up with another three kills, totaling 13 for the game. Fraser had the sets’ winning kill again, making her second in kills for the game with a total of ten with the addition of a block with Taylor. Taylor also had another block of her own a few points before, making three blocks total for the game.
To finish off the tournament, the Owls had one more game, although it was not as victorious as the last two. They faced the Thoroughbreds of Skidmore College from New York and lost the first game of the season at a 3-0 final score.
The first set ended 25-15. The Owls stayed within a few point margin for the beginning of the match, but after multiple point-earning streaks for the Thoroughbreds, the Owls could not catch up. The set ended with seven kills, and both Small and Harkins got three assists, with Stake securing one of her own, allowing Small to get a kill. Taylor also got a block about halfway through the set.
After a closer second set, the Owls still lost at a score of 25-20. The Owls quickly got a lead on the Thoroughbreds with a 4-1 score, but after a few errors they quickly caught back up. The Owls kept fighting and brought the score back to 15-11, but the Thoroughbreds quickly caught back up and took the lead for the rest of the set.
Bartels got three kills out of the teams’ eight in the set, and Ruberg contributed two. Small had two service aces in the game, as well as three assists. Fraser and Taylor got two blocks together in this set as well.
The last set of the tournament and of the game against Skidmore ended at 25-18. 12 of Skidmore’s points were offensive errors, yet the Owls still put up a fight with 12 kills. It was not until closer to the end of the game when Skidmore got ahead by more than a couple of points after Keene maintained a score close behind them for most of the set. Eventually, it went from a 13–11 score to a 23-16, and the seven-point gap was too much for the Owls to come back from.
Miller and Fraser each got three kills for the Owls. Taylor blocked another attack from Skidmore, giving her four blocks for the game. Small ended up with five assists in the last set and 11 for the game, while Harkins had six assists in the last set and 14 for the game.
After the two-day tournament in Springfield, the Owls came back with two wins after their first games of the season. The women’s volleyball team plays the Bears of Bridgewater State University on Tuesday, Sept. 2, at home.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
