In a solid opening weekend, the Hillsdale College volleyball team served up three wins at the Tony Banner Invitational in Clarion, Pennsylvania. The Chargers dropped just one match on the weekend. Though it was the team’s first official competition of the season, the Chargers are already striving to be spotless.
“We definitely wish we would have gone 4-0,” senior outside hitter Sam Siddall said. “But there was a lot of good that came out of this weekend, too.”
The Chargers powered undefeated start on Friday, sweeping Merrimack University 3-0, and defeating Cedarville University — Hillsdale’s future GMAC rival — 3-1.
Junior outside hitter Jackie Langer had a stellar debut match for the Chargers, leading the offense with 13 kills. Hillsdale out-blocked Merrimack nine to zero, and forced the Warriors to a -.045 hitting percentage. Compared to Hillsdale’s impressive .291 hitting percentage, the Warriors didn’t stand a chance.
Sophomore outside hitter Kara Vyletel partnered with Langer to begin her incredible weekend showing. Vyletel pounded eight kills in the first match, and went on to captain the Chargers’ offense for the rest of the weekend.
“Kara got a lot of kills,” head coach Chris Gravel said. “With Kara, a difference from freshmen to sophomore year is that she was able to recover from errors, and that’s what we need her to do.”
Friday’s second competition proved a bit more challenging for the Chargers as they matched up against the Cedarville Yellow Jackets.
The Chargers came out strong, beating the Yellow Jackets 25-18 in game one. Cedarville went on to reverse the scores in game two, defeating Hillsdale by an identical margin. From there, the Chargers sharpened their offense and pushed for consecutive 25-19 and 25-20 wins to end the match.
Vyletel matched her career-high kills, slamming 15 kills against Cedarville. Seniors Erin Holsinger and Kyra Rodi combined for 21 kills in the middle, while sophomore Paige VanderWall rounded out the Charger offense with 9 kills from the right side.
Orchestrating this powerful offense was sophomore Taylor Bennett. The starting setter recorded a career-high 48 assists against Cedarville.
“Taylor Bennett was very focused on the first day, she ran the offense well,” Gravel said. “As the tournament went on, we got better at selection and changing things up. Her game four was very good, and she used a lot of our options that we have built into our offense.”
“We looked really solid,” Siddall said. “We have a lot of talent on the team and the ability to work really hard. Our mindset going in was a lot more confident this year.”
But on Saturday, the Chargers’ stainless showing met its match. Gannon University swept Hillsdale 3-0 to start the day.
“A lot of people just forgot to bring their games into the gym — they left them on the bus,” Gravel said. “But afterward, we had lunch, and they looked under their seats and found their games again.”
The Chargers bounced right back, powering to a 3-0 win over the Clarion University to cap the 3-1 weekend. Holsinger, who was named to the All-Tournament Team, smashed 11 kills in her .429 hitting percentage against the host team. Vyletel didn’t cool down in the final match: she recorded 14 kills, bringing her weekend tally to 49.
Saturday proved a shining day for Siddall, who was brought off the bench against both Gannon and Clarion.
“When Jackie was struggling we brought Sam Siddall off the bench — she was a difference maker,” Gravel said.
Defensively, the Chargers were led by Vyletel, playing middle back, and freshman libero Taylor Wiese, who played an “excellent” left back, Gravel said.
“I was really nervous, but I think as a team we have really good chemistry and if I was struggling, or if someone else was struggling, we did great at bringing each other up and working hard for every point,” Wiese said.
Gravel said his team’s serving stood out as a strength in its debut performance — the Chargers served 19 aces this weekend. Though Holsinger hasn’t served much in her three previous seasons, Gravel said she was strong on the line this weekend. Freshman Emily Lachmann, however, has emerged as one of the team’s strongest servers and an all-around asset for the Chargers.
“Emily Lachmann seems to be, across the board, our most aggressive server with the most success,” Gravel said. “She’s never played right back in her career, but each match she gets a little bit better— she figures out where she needs to be on defense and she gets more balls up. She’s also an option for back row attack.”
The Chargers are looking forward to playing familiar faces next weekend — Hillsdale will match up with Clarion on Friday to start the Findlay Classic.
“We’ve never had that happen where we play back-to-back this early in the year,” Gravel said. “We did beat Clarion in three, but it wasn’t easy. We always try to go back to the basics, but we served and passed pretty well against them. We’re going to have to do the same or better to end up on top again.”
The Chargers will play Malone, a former GLIAC opponent, and Pitt.-Johnstown on Saturday. Though Hillsdale defeated both of these teams last year, Gravel said neither should be overlooked. Siddall said her team is striving for perfection before starting conference play the following weekend.
“This weekend, we’re definitely hoping to go undefeated,” she said.
