With 3-0 losses to both Grand Valley and Ferris State this weekend, the Chargers suffered their first weekend sweep and their first losing weekend. The Chargers are now 7-4 in the GLIAC and have dropped to third in the South Division.
Head coach Chris Gravel said it’s time to turn it back around.
“We need to get back to our winning ways now,” Gravel said. “We’ve taken all the time that we can in losing. It’s time to win.”
The Chargers knew that No. 3 Ferris State and No. 24 Grand Valley would be tough competition, but senior rightside hitter Haylee Booms said her team should have prepared harder.
“I think we underestimated them,” Booms said. “They were really good teams and we should have prepared a lot more in practice, like working harder, and working on the shots that they hit.”
Players from Ferris and Grand Valley watched Hillsdale rally back against Truman University at the Midwest Region Crossover Tournament on Oct. 17, allowing them to scout the Chargers’ offense to more effectively stop it.
The Chargers recorded only 27 kills on Friday against the Lakers on 177 attempts. Junior middle hitter Erin Holsinger recorded seven of these kills. The offensive efforts deteriorated further as the match went on. The Chargers hit .152, .051, and .000 percent in the three sets.
On Saturday, Hillsdale’s offense still couldn’t find its spark. In Big Rapids, the Chargers struggled to their toughest loss of the season in a 9-25 first set loss. Ferris is undefeated in conference play and has dropped only one set against GLIAC competitors.
The Chargers’ 25 kills were pounded by Ferris State’s 46. Hillsdale hit just .058 as a team, while Ferris had a .395 hitting percentage. Freshman outside hitter Paige VanderWall led the offense, managing eight kills.
This weekend marked sophomore defensive specialist Brittany Jandasek’s first conference match of the season after recovering from surgery. Jandasek said her time off the court was long, but she found benefit in watching senior Jenalle Beaman who wore the libero jersey in Jandasek’s absence.
“It was very helpful to be able to watch Jenalle, she’s a great defensive player and someone that I look up to. So watching her play definitely helped me learn,” Jandasek said. “But it’s exciting to be back. It was a very long month and a half.”
Jandasek led the Chargers’ defense on both days with 20 digs and 14 digs, respectively.
Booms said it wasn’t a confidence issue for the Chargers this weekend, but more of a skills issue as the women had become complacent in recent weeks of practice. Gravel agreed, and said the team is working towards a stronger practice mentality.
“It’s about creating a new sense of urgency and adversity,” Gravel said. “There isn’t a great athlete that is going to be a great athlete unless they overcome obstacles, adversity, and some disagreement. We’ve created some of that in the meetings amongst the team.”
Gravel saying his team needs to strive towards consistency.
“We’re definitely stirring things up this week as far as positions and approach to practices,” Gravel said. “There are things we should be doing near 100 percent of the time that we’re only doing about 60 percent of the time, and that’s what we’re really going to focus on this week. Sometimes it’s as simple as calling the ball.”
Booms said the Chargers have watched film from the weekend to expose some of their mistakes.
“We’re going back to the basics,” Booms said. “We watched a lot of film, which he haven’t really done in the past, so we broke down a lot of things. It’s crazy and eye-opening.”
In contrast to last week’s preparation, the Chargers plan to overestimate their competition this Friday and Saturday. Hillsdale will host Ohio Dominican (10-8) on Friday at 7 p.m. and Tiffin University (6-12) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
“You have to stay on both of these teams, they’re good enough,” Gravel said. “They’re trying to take our spot in the conference tournament.”
