When the Chargers took the court on Friday evening, they already knew their post-season fate. For the first time since 2002, they had not made it to the 2016 GLIAC Tournament, and this would be Hillsdale’s last weekend in the GLIAC.
Still, there were two matches to be played — one against the top-seeded team in the Midwest Region, Ferris State University, and one against rival Grand Valley State University. The Chargers decided to use the bad news as motivation, playing with a “nothing-to-lose” mentality, sophomore outside hitter Kara Vyletel said.
“It was pretty disappointing, but part of the reason that we’ve been struggling is fear of failure. People have been stressed out about needing to perform, and knowing that there was no chance at postseason was obviously really sad but it brought fuel to our team and made us want to work as hard as we could for the last two matches,” Vyletel said.
This mentality worked for the Chargers as they pushed Ferris to four sets, then carried that momentum into Saturday to defeat the Grand Valley Lakers for the second time this season, ending the season on a win.
The 1-1 weekend leaves the Chargers with a 16-12 overall record, and 8-9 in the GLIAC. This was the Chargers’ first GLIAC losing record in 12 years. Hillsdale needed just one more win to make it to the GLIAC Tournament, a disappointing fact considering the 2-point margins that decided plenty of games this season.
Head coach Chris Gravel said his players earned this outcome, but they’ll try to learn from it.
“Some of it was predicted, I thought if we could just make it into the tournament then things would start coming together, and then we could do some real damage,” Gravel said. “We were really close to making it, and I think we could have made some damage.”
Still, Gravel said he was pleased with the effort his team gave in its final pair of matches.
“The team played hard both days, and we had some success,” he said. “Of course, it’s a should-have, could-have, would-have type of year.”
The Chargers went into Friday’s match determined to put up a solid fight against the 15-1 Ferris State Bulldogs. After the Bulldogs ran away with both sets one and two, the Chargers fought back for a 25-22 win in set three — but Ferris capped the match with a 25-21 win in set four.
Gravel said the Chargers battled on Friday evening and were able to carry some good things into Saturday’s play — a feat they’ve struggled with this season.
According to junior outside hitter Jackie Langer, the Chargers had an extra touch of motivation on Saturday.
“At first, our coach told us that Grand Valley would be out of the tournament if we beat them,” Langer said. “That was a huge motivation factor, but we still went into it with the same mentality — we always want to win.”
That’s exactly what the Chargers did. After Hilldale snatched sets one and two with 25-23 wins, Grand Valley reversed the score for set three. The Chargers ended their GLIAC career with a 27-25 decision in set four.
Senior middle hitters Erin Holsinger and Kyra Rodi went out with a bang on Saturday — Holsinger slammed 14 kills to go with a .355 hitting percentage while Rodi recorded two solo blocks and four block assists.
“It felt good, it felt like finally we had a tough match where it was back and forth against a good team and then we came through. It had been some time since we felt that,” Gravel said. “If the season would have gone just one week longer I think we could have made a real impact.”
The Chargers aren’t used to wrapping up before Thanksgiving, but Gravel said the squad will get right back to work. In just the first week out, Gravel scheduled a morning pool workout, amongst multiple team meetings.
“I said, ‘In no way, shape, or form am I going to give you a free month off that’s not deserved,’” Gravel said.
With a six-member freshman class, the team’s youth had a lot to do with the season’s outcome, according to Gravel. Now, the team will look forward and work on developing selflessness and consistency in the offseason.
“There’s a lot of lessons for our younger returners as far as taking their skill set and each other for granted,” Gravel said.
Vyletel says she’s feeling excited and positive about the future of the program.
“With our team being young there are only good things that can happen,” Vyletel said. “We’ve already had so much growth and we learned so much from not making postseason and that’s going to motivate a lot of people. We have a lot of work to do. We’re going to get a lot better. We’re going to go into next season ready to dominate.”