Courtesy of Brian Beard

On October 17, the volleyball team (11–8; 4–4 NESCAC) completed a reverse sweep over Endicott College (13–6) to end their Dig Pink Weekend tournament. On Saturday evening, the Polar Bears bounced back from a loss to Middlebury College (14–5; 4–4 NESCAC) on the previous day and a narrow loss to Hamilton College (7–8; 3–5 NESCAC) that morning, where they played to five sets for a second time.

Annie Stent ’27 discussed what it took to rise from both the physical and mental exhaustion of their second five-set loss.

“Losing in five is really tough, because it is often more emotional,” Stent said. “That’s always a challenge, and thinking about how you come back from that…. We talked a lot about grit throughout all of the matches. Even to go to five, whether you’re winning or losing, there’s a lot of heart and hustle and grit that goes into that.”

At 5 p.m. on Saturday, the Polar Bears kicked off their final match of the weekend, pushing against Endicott College with a shift in both mindset and strategy that ultimately made all the difference. Throughout the game, the team focused on aggression, delivering pointed plays like hard serving and hustle to reach all ends of the court.

In adjusting to this way of playing, the team trailed at the start, dropping the first set 25–14 and leaving behind a closely-contested second set by 26–24. Stent recalled how the team’s tendency to drop the first set and then battle back from that was part of an exhausting effort.

“After [we lost the first two]… there were a lot of feelings of, ‘Oh, we’re doing it again’ and then also, ‘We’re done with this.’ That was a lot where that shift in the third could come from. Not only did we have someone go down that we wanted to fight for, but also we were over it. We were over losing,” Stent said.

With the stakes at their highest, it was in the third set that the Polar Bears turned the tide against Endicott. As a result of two six-point runs, the home team took the set 25–19. In the next set, the Polar Bears rode the wave, enjoying an eight-point swing and two five-point runs that helped the team finish 25–17, ending a second set victorious. Outside hitter Kelsey Kim ’28 described the team’s pride in meeting the demands of the match.

“There were tons of setbacks on our team that could’ve hurt our performance, but we were able to set aside all the external noise and focus primarily on competing. We’ve always been a team that plays for each other and for love of the game,” Kim wrote in an email to the Orient.

The final set started slow but the team had a strong finish. The team trailed 10–13 but flipped the switch when it was most needed, scoring five unanswered that completed the reverse sweep and ended the last set 15–13. By the end of the game, Kim had secured a team-high and career-best 15 kills, and her setter, Molly Dunn ’30, had achieved a career-high 41 assists.

These three games were hosted in collaboration with Side-Out Foundation’s Dig Pink initiative to raise funds for metastatic breast cancer, where every dig counted toward more than just a point. Organized by Stent, this weekend’s tournament made it so that both the players and their audience contributed to the cause. The games’ progress counted toward the team’s pledge-per-dig fundraiser, making a donation for every dig recorded by the Polar Bears. In the stands, donors had the chance to enter a raffle for gift cards to local Brunswick businesses including Dog Bar Jim, Wild Oats and Dutchman’s Wood-Fired Bagels or make a direct contribution to the team’s online campaign.

This year, the team ended the weekend with both a win and a record-high total of funds, reaching $6,667 as of yesterday. The Polar Bears surpassed last year’s total of $6,460 and reached a hefty contribution that will support research and awareness efforts targeting metastatic breast cancer.

The team will wrap up their regular season play this weekend at Morrell Gymnasium. The Polar Bears will face non-conference rival Worcester Polytechnic Institute (10–11) on Friday at 7 p.m. On Saturday, the team will go up against Lasell University (12–10) at 11 a.m. and face Wellesley College (12–6) at 3 p.m. With the lessons learned from the weekend, Kim and the team are ready to get right back to competing.

“This weekend wasn’t ideal for us, as we would’ve liked to take home two more NESCAC wins, so it just shows that there’s plenty of work left to be done.” Kim wrote.“The final stretch is always the hardest, but we’re excited to confront it head on and keep proving that we can show up in big moments.”