Volleyball club plays first match

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The Hillsdale Men’s Volleyball Club played best of five but lost in three at Adrian College March 15. The scores were: 25-11, 25-19, and 25-15.

The club was started last semester by freshman Eric Walker, who serves as the club’s president. Assistant Professor of Economics Michael Clark coaches, and Ryan Servold, middle school volleyball coach at Hillsdale Academy, is assistant coaching.

“I think we learned a lot of things,” Clark said. “It was frustrating and fun all at the same time. This was our first ever game, and it was Adrian’s 42nd of the year.”

Despite their status as another small school, Adrian is No. 2 in the nation for Division II men’s volleyball out of 42 total club teams, Clark said.

“They were fun to play with and they were really nice,” junior David Graber said. “It was professional. They had refs and line judges, score keeping, and an announcer. It was a great first match.”

Walker led the team with 5 kills for 10 hitting attempts and one error. He had two digs, 2.5 blocks, and was setting much of the time. Clark said that Walker really turned his play up when the game got going, stepping up where needed.

“Eric is a volleyball god,” Graber said.

Sophomore Trent Baer was second on the team for kills with four. Walker and Baer are the most experienced competitive volleyball players on the team, and Clark said he thought Walker and Baer built on one another’s energy to lead the team.

“It was our first match, so we were confused for a lot of the time, but we had a few good plays,” Graber said.

Clark said that there was some discomfort because most of the team had never played official volleyball and needed to quickly learn the formalities of the game. But in regards to actually playing volleyball, the team did well.

“I was really looking for moments of streaks of good play,” he said, “and in that regard, I thought we did awesome.”

Walker said the club is becoming more established. There are many opportunities to play and they may enter a tournament in the spring.

The team hopes to join a conference next year and schedule regular matches.

“We have good team unity, which has produced control,” Walker said. “A couple of weeks ago, Coach turned and said, ‘You’re actually playing volleyball now.’ And from that point on, we actually have been, and it’s been great.”