Women’s Volleyball hands Fairfield their first loss of the season on Senior Night

Photos%3A+Liz+Flynn

Photos: Liz Flynn

Gage Kilborne

The Bobcats came back from being down two sets to none to win their second overall match against the Stags in school history.

In the first set, Fairfield claimed as the victors winning 25-17, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Quinnipiac and Fairfield were playing neck-and-neck throughout the set. The Stags fired 12 kills to Quinnipiac’s nine. Quinnipiac led Fairfield with 32 attacking attempts.

However, the Bobcats paid the piper with having eight attack errors to the Stag’s two. This was the big difference for Quinnipiac, as Fairfield took full advantage of this and had a one-zero set lead after one.

The second set, however, was all Fairfield as they dominated all stat categories which led to the 25-18 victory. Fairfield once again dominated the kills category with a 15-8 lead.

With this all being said, the Stags were showing signs that they were about to crack by making one service error and committing eight service errors. Unfortunately for the Bobcats, they were not able to capitalize on these errors and saw the top team in the MAAC have a 2-0 set lead in a best-three-of-five match.

Before the third set began, Quinnipiac Volleyball head coach Kyle Robinson said this to his team, “Just keep playing the steady game that we have been.”

In the third set, the Bobcats did just that by dominating almost every stat category.  They led in hit percentage (.400), kills (18), and committed fewer total errors (2). They played the perfect set against Fairfield, and it ultimately led to a victory for the Bobcats. Fairfield still led the match however, two sets to one.

Quinnipiac was able to stay alive with a monumental third set victory, however, the Bobcats struggled in the fourth set causing many crucial errors. The Bobcats committed five ball-handling errors, five attack errors, and four service errors, this gave Fairfield an easy 14 points.

Many might give up when they commit a bunch of errors like the Bobcats did, but not Robinson’s squad. Once the fourth set ended, the Bobcats forced a tiebreaking fifth set with a 25-22 finish 

In the tiebreaker set, Fairfield committed more errors than Quinnipiac and the Bobcats used this as energy to help push them to the finish line, winning 15-11. After blowing a two set to none match earlier in the day, pulling off the comeback in game two was a big accomplishment for Quinnipiac. The Bobcats had three service aces this set to make life easier for them in the long run, as they were able to defeat Fairfield in five sets.

Besides the victory, this game was also very emotional to the seniors since it was their last match at Burt Kahn. This led senior Morgan Sherwin to discuss how much of an impact this team put on her.

“Every girl that has been a part of this program, they’re one of my sisters for life and I really wouldn’t change anything,” Sherwin said.

Junior outside hitter Maggie Baker became emotional after Sherwin reflected over her past four years as a Quinnipiac right side hitter.

This will also be a big loss for Robinson, as he reflected upon the seniors he is going to lose.

“They were here when I got here (in 2019) but we’re are all so tightly connected that it just doesn’t matter. They are my girls, they mean the world to me.”