Volleyball squares off

Last Wednesday, the UR volleyball team had a 3-1 victory over SUNY Geneseo, making it their third win against the Knights this season and improving their overall record to 17-5. The Yellowjackets won 30-24, 30-27, 19-30 and 30-19.In the home match at the Palestra, junior Haley Massa had 17 kills, a career high for her. Sophomore Susan Johnson had 18 kills along with 20 digs.The Geneseo match was one for the record books. Senior Liz Loveless became the all-time assist leader at Rochester, pulling ahead of the previous record of 4,241. Loveless, who entered the match needing only eight assists, broke the record in the first game, tallying 13 of her game-high 47 assists. Loveless now has 4,280 career assists.The celebration following the Geneseo match could not last long, as the Yellowjackets had to prepare for the second University Athletic Association Round Robin tournament. They knew that the tournament was going to be a challenge.”The UAA is the toughest conference for Division III volleyball – there is no doubt about that,” Massa said. “The top four teams in our conference are all ranked in the top 20 among [Division III] teams in the nation.”UR came out of the weekend 0-4 against top competition including Emory University, New York University and Carnegie Melon University.The first matches of the tournament were on Oct. 16 against Emory and Chicago The Yellowjackets lost 3-0 to both teams. Loveless had 56 total assists for the two matches. Against Chicago, Johnson had 17 digs and 12 kills with Massa adding 15 kills.Sunday’s schedule proved to be no less difficult, facing No. 1-ranked NYU at 9 a.m. and Carnegie Mellon immediately after at 11:30 a.m. UR fought hard, taking NYU to four games, but ultimately NYU defeated the Yellowjackets 25-30, 17-30, 30-22 and 21-30. UR was then defeated by Carnegie Melon in the following match 28-30, 20-30 and 22-30. While playing in a competitive conference can be difficult, UR welcomes the challenge. The Yellowjackets are ready to take the past weekend as a learning experiences and continue improving.”We know now that we are capable of keeping up and playing with any of these teams – we just have to know that we can beat them,” Loveless said. “We’ve never really been at this level in previous years, so I think we lack some of that upper-level experience.”With an overall record of 17-9, UR is looking forward to the upcoming championships in November, when they will get to face the teams again.”I think we’re all looking forward to conference championships when we can play these teams again with a little more experience and the state tournament under our belt,” Loveless said.The Yellowjackets’ next game is on Oct. 19 against Nazareth College. This is the team’s last home game before heading off to the New York State Championship at SUNY Oneonta. All are encouraged to come cheer on the Yellowjackets at 7 p.m. in the Palestra.McLean can be reached at amclean@campustimes.org.