Box Score
Elizabethtown, PA — At some point, the tide has to turn.
Messiah dropped its first Commonwealth Conference match of the season Tuesday night at Elizabethtown College, fighting tooth and nail to a heartbreaking 3-2 (25-20, 13-25, 25-23, 18-25, 12-15) decision.
It was, without question, one of the Falcons' most entertaining and well-played matches of the season to date.
It also sustained a trend that is almost unbearable to Falcons' fans.
Not including last season's 3-1 loss, Messiah has now dropped three consecutive five-set matches to the Blue Jays, all ending in a 12-15 score in the final stanza.
Messiah head coach Judi Tobias knows one can't make this stuff up, but she wishes it was.
“We're two evenly matched teams, and we have been over the last several years,” she said after Tuesday night's latest round of E'Town heartache. “It's never good to lose, but we might as well learn from this. I think tonight further points out all the idiosyncrasies we need to work on. The little things we need to get better at become exaggerated in a match like this.”
Statistically speaking, Messiah (9-10, 3-1) didn't appear to need improvement on much, as the Falcons set new single-match season records in both kills (53) and digs (70) Tuesday night, coming just an assist away from its single-match best (44) and three service aces away from its season record (13).
Despite those numbers, Elizabethtown (13-6, 4-0) was up to the challenge on an unusually warm and humid night in the Blue Jays' Thompson Gymnasium.
“We did play well, but we have lulls, and those lulls kill us,” Tobias said. “We've been working on this whole idea of coasting during matches, a term we've thrown around a lot. I feel like volleyball is such a mental game. We've been working on situations in practice to try to simulate the need to sustain a high level of play for long periods, but we still are struggling a little bit with it in matches. Tonight, those lulls cost us.”
Tobias' club showed no lulls in Tuesday's first set, turning an 11-11 score into a 16-11 tally midway through. Messiah kept that spread until the end, using kills from sophomores Cassy Diamond and Emily Hall to close the opener in a 25-20 win.
'Coasting' quickly became a concern for the Falcons at the start of the second set, however, as Elizabethtown rolled out to a 7-0 lead, forcing Tobias to burn a timeout before things had really started. And while Mesiah was able to pull within a 7-4 score after the brief discussion, E'Town eventually opened up a 16-8 gap, never looking back in the 25-13 crushing.
“Game Two, that's the kind of thing we're talking about,” Tobias said. “I feel like we lost it in the second and the fourth. Sure, everyone says that when you lose a 3-2 match, but I felt like we really lost it. Elizabethtown did what they had to do, and took advantage of our mistakes.”
Another strong Messiah start led to the 25-23 third set win, though Tobias' club had to hold on following a late E'Town rally. The Falcons grabbed leads of 15-9 and 18-12 before stumbling, as the Blue Jays went on a 10-2 run, grabbing a 22-20 lead of their own.
Another Messiah timeout helped reverse the trend, however, as a slide attack kill from freshman Lindsay King pulled Messiah back to a 21-22 deficit.
Following an E'Town kill, sophomore Brynn Lettieri came up huge, notching a pair of tip kills — sandwiched by another kill from Diamond.
After E'Town called a timeout to stop the bleeding, Hall came up with a violent swing to end the game, as Messiah had reclaimed a 2-1 overall lead with the 25-23 third-set decision.
Sadly, it would be Messiah's last post-set celebration.
An 8-2 Elizabethtown run midway through the fourth set turned a 10-10 game into an 18-12 Blue Jay lead, and Messiah would get no closer than four points in the 18-25 loss. In the fifth set, an early 3-0 Messiah lead was quickly snubbed by a 6-0 E'Town push, helping the Blue Jays to an 8-4 lead when the squads changed sides.
A slow comeback from the visitors would heighten the drama, however, as a kill and subsequent service ace from freshman Lauren Rees pulled the Falcons within an 8-9 deficit. A kill from Diamond knotted things up at 9-9, and the match was there for the taking.
Again, E'Town would come up with the biggest plays when it had to.
A tip kill from King again tied the score (10-10), but a pair of Blue Jays' kills — the first coming from the back row — gave the hosts a 12-10 lead. Another hard swing from Diamond pulled Messiah within an 11-12 disparity, but E'Town came up with a tip kill on the ensuing point, taking a 13-11 lead.
Almost in cinema fashion, the longest rally of the entire night followed, with Diamond terminating play in the form of her 11th kill of the match.
Holding a 13-12 lead, Elizabethtown called timeout.
It worked.
The hosts notched a kill on the next point and followed with a service ace, winning the match by that despised, 15-12 difference.
Tuesday's Blue Jay win had joined a 20-30, 31-33, 30-27, 30-21, 12-15 decision on Sept. 26, 2007 and a 23-30,30-23,24-30,30-28,12-15 result on Oct. 10, 2006 — giving E'Town three of the last four decisions in such bitter fashion.
“We've been in a lot of these (five-set matches) this year,” Tobias said. “We had a tough weekend at York College where we won three of the four (matches) in five. You've got to stay focused on your strategies in matches like this. For the most part, I thought we did that tonight. Our lulls hurt us.”
Rees paced Messiah with 14 kills to go with 16 digs, while Diamond and King each pounded 11 attacks for points. Sophomore Megan Wise also finished with 16 digs in her libero position, while senior Lauren Bourdon registered all of the team's 43 assists.
Elizabethtown finished the night with identical numbers in both kills and digs, coming up with 12 block assists.
“They brought some stuff up, but I thought we brought some stuff up, too,” Tobias said of the hosts' defense. “It was a good match for the fans, no question. Being entertaining when we play E'Town has not been a problem.”
Messiah will look for a bit more conventional result Friday, as the team will travel to Shenandoah University. Match time is set for 7 p.m.
