Excitement builds for women’s volleyball

Acacia O'Connor Senior Editor

Did you know that the Vassar women’s volleyball team has won five consecutive Liberty League Championships? Or that they have won a bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship Tournament four times in the past five years? If so, it would come as little surprise to hear of the team’s success thus far this season.

In theory, if any year should have been a rocky one for the prolific program, it was this one. The team is young, boasting five freshmen and only a single senior on its roster. The team is also under the new leadership of Interim Head Coach Paul Yee, a 2006 graduate of the Milwaukee School of Engineeering. And graduation should have hit them hard as well, having lost All-New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association team members Anita Stavin ’06 and Lauren Gass ’06. These hurdles, however, have done little to stop the team.

“My expectations were that I didn’t really have any,” said Yee. “I knew this was an established program. And I knew it was going to be hard to make changes.”

Yee noted that his style of coaching is very different from that of 10-year Head Coach Jonathan Penn, something that he feared would make it difficult for returning players to adjust. Penn is currently on sabbatical and will return next year. Yee is aided by Assistant Coach Antonia Sweet, who has helped guide the program since 1998.

However, the team seems to have gotten into Yee’s groove. “The coaching style is a lot different,” said Cat Foley ’08 in an e-mailed statement. “Neither way is better. I like both Coach Yee and Coach Penn.”

The Brewers opened up the season by winning the Vassar Invitational Tournament, held at the College on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9, where the team quelled the hopes of Union, Hunter, SUNY Cortland and Skidmore to take home the championship trophy. The following weekend, on Sept. 15 and Sept. 16, the team bested Russell Sage, SUNYIT, Oswego and Skidmore Colleges to clinch the Union Tournament.

The excitement surrounding the team this year grew with each consecutive win—reaching a fever pitch when the team stood undefeated at 10-0 rolling into their Sept. 20 match against nationally-ranked number 14 New York University (NYU). The Brewers suffered their first loss there, coming out slow in the first game of the match and losing 30-16.

Yee said the game at NYU taught the team about unity. “We learned we need to play together as a team,” said Yee. “If they’re all out there by themselves, that’s not going to happen.”

On the weekend of Sept. 22, the team traveled to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the MIT Tournament. Vassar came in fourth place out of 14 teams, falling to Williams College in a four-game thriller and then losing to Tufts University.

In each of these tournament appearances, Amanda Hsiung ’08 has shone. Hsuing, along with Alia Al-Khatib ’08, were elected to the Vassar Invitational all-tournament team. Hsuing also made all-tournament in the MIT Tournament. Foley and Kim Goldstein ’07 have also been indispensible, according to Yee.
“They’ve been pretty steady for us,” he said. Yee added that the freshmen, several of whom have starting positions, have contributed greatly as well.

As for the rest of the season, Yee said he tries not to look too far ahead. “We have a lot of goals to win the tournaments we play in...but our highest need is to play competitively every day.”

Foley seemed more certain. “We are successful because we want to improve and become better. We are never satisfied,” said Foley. “We're going to continue to be successful because we want to be.”