Box Score
Annville, PA — It was — by all accounts — certainly not the performance that the Messiah volleyball program was expecting out of itself.
Heading into Wednesday's MAC Commonwealth Conference Semi-Final at top-seed Lebanon Valley College, the Falcons were riding a five-match winning streak, a stretch that included a pair of wins just five days earlier that head coach Judi Tobias called the team's “best volleyball of the year.”
It was simply not to be Wednesday night.
Messiah (19-7) dropped a 0-3 (24-26, 11-25, 10-25) decision to the host Dutchmen, hitting in the negative for the first time all season while dropping just its third sweep of the year. The Falcons had a season-high four players attack for negative percentages, as Lebanon Valley (32-2) cruised to Saturday's league championship match in shell-shocking fashion.
“Obviously, we are extremely disappointed in how we played tonight,” Tobias said. “We played a very tough team and we knew that we would have to play one of our best matches of the year. We didn't.”
Things looked bleak for Tobias' club almost instantly, as Lebanon Valley used four Messiah attack errors to race off to a 5-0 lead in the evening's first set. The Dutchmen maintained that spread at 12-7 and increased its margin to eight points — at a 20-12 score — pushing the Falcons to the brink.
Incredibly, Messiah responded with a 12-3 run to take a 24-23 lead, all while hitting -.020 overall in the first set. Kills from seniors Amy Mattie and Leslie Heffner got the push started, while three straight attack errors from LVC pulled Messiah within 17-20.
An ensuing Dutchmen swing and subsequent ball handling error from the Falcons made it 22-17, but Messiah would score eight of the set's next nine points to shock the LVC Gymnasium crowd — a majority of which made the trip from Grantham to support the Falcons.
A kill from senior Trisha Trosper started Messiah's final surge, while a service ace from junior Samantha Bradley forced a Dutchmen timeout. Kills from Trosper and junior Laura Bourdon were caboosed by an impressive block assist from Trosper and freshman Brynn Lettieri, making the score 24-23, Messiah.
Needing just one more point to perhaps change the entire complexion of what would come next, Tobias' club could not capitalize. Lebanon Valley registered a kill on the next exchange via a ball that appeared to be heading out, only to be played by the Falcons' back row. That ball ricocheted off to the bleachers to tie the score at 24-24, while a Messiah attack error and LVC kill would end the set in the hosts' favor.
Perhaps dejected by the late turn of events, the Falcons could not put much of anything together in the final two stanzas. Messiah trailed by an 8-17 score in the second set before falling, while a Trosper kill trimmed LVC's lead to just 11-10 in the third.
That point would be Messiah's final tally of the season, however, as LVC served the final 13 points to close on a miraculous 14-0 run for the match-clincher. Four Falcons' attack errors and a pair of ball handling miscues lowlighted those final 14 points, as the team's .000 third-set attack percentage was its best effort of the night.
“We had repeated stretches where we would make consecutive hitting errors, and you just can't do that against a team as good as LVC is,” Tobias said. “They are incredibly determined and make it tough to put the ball away in the first place. You can't help them if you want to win.”
Heffner finished as the only double-digit kill provider, charting 10 attacks for points on a .111 attacking clip. Trosper added five, Bradley added three and Mattie two, helping combine for just 21 total kills — also a season-low for the squad.
Senior Meghan Morrissey led the defensive effort with 18 digs, while Mattie and Bourdon each finished with 12. Lettieri collected a pair of solo blocks while assisting on another. Bourdon dished out 18 assists.
For Heffner, Mattie, Morrissey and Trosper, their careers would end on this night, though Tobias made it a point to redirect thoughts to better times.
“It's always tough to say goodbye to seniors,” she said. “We talked after the match and discussed the fact that, for four of you, this was your last opportunity to play college volleyball and to play with this group. I said that I hoped this was not the memory you take away. There were so many great moments, but this wasn't one of them. I really don't know what happened to us tonight. We had a great couple days of practice leading up to this match, and I didn't detect any doubts. Obviously a very tough way to end a season.”
Post-season awards will be announced in the coming days and weeks. Check back to this site for the latest in Messiah volleyball off-season news and information.
