September 17, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carole Grills
(413) 585-2703

Volleyball Loses Heartbreaker At Babson

Babson Park, MA: The Pioneers dropped a heartbreaking 3-2 match last night at Babson. Smith split the first four sets against the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) rival and lost the match in the last set 13-15. With the victory, Babson improved to 6-3 (1-0) while Smith fell to 2-5 and (0-1).

Smith took a 24-21 lead late in the first set but the home team fought back to tie it at 30-30.  Junior Bethany Weiss (Windham, NH) recorded a kill for Smith to give the Pioneers a one-point lead followed by a Babson hitting error that gave Smith the 32-30 win. The second game went to Babson by another close score of 25-23. In set three, the Pioneers had a 20-17 lead and ran off the final five points to take the set 25-18.  Smith had a 10-9 lead in the fourth set but Babson answered with a 10-3 run to take the lead for good to post the 25-21 victory and even the match. Set five was a true battle as neither team led by more than two points for the majority of the set which featured seven ties and three lead changes.  With the set tied at 9, sophomore Lauren Martinez (Phoenix, AZ) scored but the Beavers tied it again at 10. Babson then rattled off three straight points to take the largest lead of the set for either team at 12-9. The Pioneers responded with a 4-1 run and pulled even at 13-13 but back-to-back kills by Babson put the match away for Babson.

Weiss had a team tied 15 kills along with 3 solo blocks.  Junior Mikal Minarich (Hobart, IN) added 12 kills, Brianne Connizzo (Demarest, NJ) 12 digs and Martinez 39 assists in the Smith loss. 

The Pioneers travel to MIT on Saturday to play the host at 11 am followed by a 1:30 pm match again UMass-Boston.