The women's volleyball team won a stunning comeback victory from a two set deficit against the Colby College Mules Wednesday Night. The Mules won the first two sets 26-24 and 25-21 before the Polar Bears rallied to take the next three sets 25-19, 15-21, and 15-10. The win improves the team's overall season record to 3-1 (8-5) and leaves Colby's at 0-2 (4-7) .
"This past weekend was a great test of our physical and mental skills," said sophomore Stephanie Bond. "We are a team full of players who are hardest on ourselves and can collapse mentally when things don't go our way. This weekend consisted of the strongest mental games we've had thus far."
First Year Ellie Brennan continued her offensive hot streak, leading the team with 12 kills. Bond led the team in assists with 24 and Jillian Berkman '12 had 17 defensive digs.
The team returned from Chicago last Sunday after going 1-3 at the Wheaton Invitational. The Polar Bears earned a 3-0 victory over Monmouth, but lost three close matches to Benedictine 3-1, Carrol 3-2 and Wheaton (Illinois) 3-1.
"If some lucky points were to have gone our way, we could have come with another win, because we played most of our games until the bitter end, point for point," Bond said. "Whenever our blocking was dominating, we were completely unstoppable."
While the team only came away with one win, there were strong individual performances all around. The weekend proved to be a breakout for Brennan, who lead the team in kills for three of the four games, including a career high of 14 against the Wheaton Thunder. Over the course of the weekend, Brennan posted 41 kills and connected on 31 percent of her attempts.
Melissa Haskell '13 collected 34 kills and 61 digs over the weekend while Stephanie Drumright '11 had 25 kills and 16 blocks. Bond averaged eight and a half assists per game for a total of 136 including a season high of 45 in the game against Wheaton. Taylor Vail '14 notched 71 digs over the course of the weekend.
Bond was particularly impressed by the blocking and serving in the third game against Benedictine.
"In order to beat the big teams in our conference, we will need the blocking and serving that kept Benedictine uneasy during that 3rd game," she said.
The Polar Bears will travel to Wesleyan University this weekend for a trio of crucial NESCAC matches against Wesleyan, Connecticut College and Trinity.