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This weekend, the men’s volleyball team competed in the Nazareth Invitational. In their first match, the squad defeated Eastern Mennonite University 3-0 (30-25, 30-26, 30-26). Following the victory, the Brewers dropped their next three matches to host Nazareth College 3-1; rival State Univeresity of New York, New Paltz 3-0; and Rivier College 3-1. Prior to the invitational, The Miscellany News sat down for an interview with Head Coach Antonia Sweet.
The Miscellany News: So far, what are your thoughts on the season?
Coach Sweet: I think we’ve done very well. They’re establishing an identity for themselves, learning the system with the five new freshmen and Po, Andres Posada [’10] who has come in after a year off. Just learning a system that works for everybody, and getting in the spirit of it. Just always pushing through adversity. It looks good. It’s starting to come together; the new boys are picking up stuff. The returners are picking up their leadership, which is really important, really good. We’re getting help from all sides, and that’s what you want from a team—to have everybody participating, everybody helping.
MN: You alluded to the transition the five new freshmen have had to make. How would you evaluate what they’ve done so far?
CS: Well, we are starting four freshmen. They have not played this kind of way before. It’s not straight ahead. It’s very much angles and coming at things on the run so to speak. We have people in key positions—all positions are key—but we have boys who are new to it, coming in and working through the transition from the way they used to play to the way we play now. [They are also transitioning to the] way it is to play in college instead of club or in high school [and are] trying to adjust to a new environment for their academics and just for living. We consider this a classroom. The court is a classroom. The team is a group of people learning to do something together, and everybody has different learning styles. And the freshmen are contributing things: Every year we make the team in the image of who we have, and so they’re adding things we haven’t had before. There’s some confidence, some brashness, some boldness that is different than we’ve had before. It adds an interesting twist to it.
MN: How have Evan Fredericksen ’11 and Phil Tully ’10, and really all the upper classmen helped in that transition?
CS: [Fredericksen and Tully] and all of them have played it before to some extent. It’s very similar. We just have little changes here and there, and so they’re role models. Evan is a quiet person, but he’s a very complete player, so they can look to him to see where they should be on defense, or how they should be using their set packages or what they need to be thinking about when they’re blocking. They can look to him for that. Phil has become a much more vocal leader. Because he didn’t need to be more vocal, he was just a leader by example in years past. Now, he’s asking them for more, and they’re getting used to that. They’re getting used to being challenged by their own teammates, which is what we need to do. They need to compete with each other to make each other better, and some of the boys from last year didn’t play very much, and now they’re playing more, so they’re getting used to a different role. So, it’s basically everybody learning a different role and sometimes multiple roles.
MN: What upcoming matches are you and is the team most looking forward to?
CS: Every one of them—our tournament, of course, this weekend. Everyone come to see that. Philadelphia Bible [University] has a guy who probably averages 22 kills a match, and we don’t know about Johnson and Wales [University] really, but then Nazareth [College] is back and Elms [College] is depleted this year— they won’t be as good as they were last year probably, but it’s always a good challenge. Then we play Bard [College] and Ramapo [College]; we have a rivalry with Ramapo. It’s at home on Saturday the 27; it’d be terrific to beat them because they’re our [North East Collegiate Volleyball Association] Metro Division rival. We always get up for that. There isn’t one we don’t look forward to. We get to play New York [University] and Springfield [College] again, which is really good, having lost to them already this year.
MN: What was it like beating Stevens Institute of Technology?
CS: That was sweet. It was really nice. The boys had a goal of avenging losses from last year and playing well at home: “Defending Kenyon” they like to say. They just executed. Everything just kind of worked and really worked. They stuck to the game plan, and got a lot of contributions from a lot of different places. They did everything right: talk, move, provide information, hit smart and go after it. It was 100 percent team effort. It was wonderful. Then it was tough to play the next day, play [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology], and Endicott [College] because we had expended a bunch of our energy the night before. But we rebounded well enough to avenge another loss. Last year, they got swept by Endicott on senior night; this year, we beat them.
MN: Is there anything else you’d like to say to the students at large?
CS: Come out for a good time! It’s fun to rock the house, to have so many people there; we appreciate the fan support to no end. It’s so helpful. That’s another member of the team, the crowd is. To have them there and be so positive and helpful is just enormous, and it really pumps the boys up. It makes us all feel really terrific. And it’s really good, high-level volleyball. This is a really high level of volleyball, and so you’re seeing student athletes performing terrifically well on the court. And they know them from the classroom and from in the dorms. Just to see another aspect of the student-athlete. It’s the Division III philosophy—let’s be excellent in every aspect—is just epitomized by these boys. They’re something else.
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