By Matthew Brooks (@brooksie1219)
Anyone who has been paying attention to Atlantic 10 volleyball, or any NCAA D1 volleyball this season has had their eyes on the Dayton Flyers (25-2, 14-0 A10), who have ascended to national prominence. While there is a lot of high-level volleyball being played in the A10, when a nearly unbeaten nationally contending team comes into town, they are going to cause any A10 fanbase to brace for the worst, and GW is no exception to that.
But while GW (7-18, 4-10 A10) ended up as just the next victim of Dayton’s 20-game win streak, GW played some highly competitive volleyball against a team that is far and away the strongest opponent they’ve faced all season. Friday (21-25, 19-25, 20-25) was particularly competitive, in a match where they were ultimately swept, but competed closely for all three. On the other hand, Saturday’s match (18-25, 13-25, 15-25) was still competitive in set one, but Dayton handily won sets two and three to close out the double sweep.
While Head Coach Reifert was disappointed at the result, she told me that she was “enlightened” by her team’s performance proving that they can play high-level volleyball.
“[Friday] we showed up in a different way and I really think that we were close to taking them down at times, and then [Saturday] because we had that expectation in our mind of how we played [Friday], it handicapped us a little bit. And so I think at this point of the season if we can play with that freedom of [Friday] we’re gonna really mess some people up, but we got to play with that freedom.”
That match on Friday was a captivating one for fans. Each set came down to its last few moments, and both teams were playing some fun offense and solid defense. The Foghorns, GW’s newly named pep band, were also present at the Smith Center, playing their usual lineup of pop/rock hits and classic stand tunes between the sets, and of course, making a lot of noise cheering on GW in their efforts along with the rest of the fans at the Smith Center.
For GW, junior outside hitter Salem Yohannes continued to lead the attack, finishing with a team-high 13 kills. The only other significant offensive impact player for GW was junior outside hitter Brittany Myers who finished with nine kills of her own.
The Revolutionaries’ strong attack kept them hanging with Dayton at times, but where the Flyers were able to consistently beat them out was on defense. Specifically, the Flyer block gave GW a lot of trouble in both matches. Dayton was able to come up with eight total blocks in their first match on Friday, and then another six on Saturday.
On the contrary, the GW block was underwhelming, even for facing a tough opponent. The Revs only got one total block on Friday and then two on Saturday. Coach Reifert was frank about her team’s struggles in that area and said they have work to do in practice throughout the week.
“I think my back-row defense has really stepped it up but [in terms of] our blocking we need to get stronger up there. I think we’re getting touches at times which is good but it’s either a positive touch or it’s a negative touch and it’s really affecting our momentum so we’re going to work a lot on blocking”
She also talked about her team’s mixed record in serving in the match series.
“Our serving was lights out [Friday], kind of got a little bit more on our heels [Saturday] so just trying to work on staying determined at the service line.”
The service line was a completely different story from Friday to Saturday. On Friday the serving was great. They did have 11 service errors, but they had 10 aces to show for the aggression, led by sophomore setter Maeve Loughran’s four. Saturday was the absolute opposite, they only had six errors but had no aces to speak of.
Aside from getting tripped up on the serve, Saturday’s regression in success can also be attributed to the attack. On Friday they were able to come up with 34 team kills, but on Saturday that dipped to 27, which is their second-worst offensive performance of the season. No one from GW was able to get it going, with six kills from Yohannes being the team-high. It is a positive that they were able to spread the attack around and have a wide variety of players involved in the offense, but the fact that none of the GW hitters were able to through the Dayton defense hindered their chance of ever coming up with a set.
Despite the results of the weekend, Coach Reifert understands what her team is capable of if they can get their minds in the right place.
“We haven’t played our best, honestly. I think a lot of things have hung us up, and maybe it was the expectations of how we played last year. Bringing those expectations into this year and then when it doesn’t happen, when we’re not playing like we did last year, letting that define us instead of pushing past that. And so I really do hope, you know, better late than never. This was a really revealing weekend for my team to let them understand like ‘oh no it’s not that we aren’t good it’s that we’re letting all these other things get in the way of playing volleyball.’”
After this weekend’s losses, the Revs will have limited chances to snap their losing streak and earn themselves a spot in the postseason. They have matches at the Smith Center against VCU (13-10, 10-3 A10) on Saturday 11/4 at 4:00 PM and Sunday 11/5 at 2:00 PM. Then the following weekend, they finish out the season with two matches at Saint Louis (12-13, 5-8 A10) that may have direct playoff implications for both teams. All of these matches will be broadcast on ESPN+.
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