Thu 20 Nov 2008
Video of NCAA elite 8 match here. Adequate video quality, but not as good as JumboCast. Informed commentary. Williams is down 23-16 in game 1 against a team that seems very strong . . .
UPDATE: Alas, Williams was crushed. Ohio Northern was much better than Wellesley.
On the good side, there was a nice shot of a Williams fan (Melissa Pun’s mom?) with a cute hand-made sign after the second set.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:31 am
So they end up tied for fifth. Very well done.
Best of luck to our remaining NCAA contenders this weekend: the cross-country women and men and the women’s soccer team.
Go Ephs!
November 21st, 2008 at 3:22 am
The Ephs mens soccer team is not in the NCAA championship bracket. Middlebury and Amherst were the two NESCAC teams. Both are still alive.
Middlebury plays Carleton at 5pm on Saturday in Hoboken, NJ. Carleton had a first round by and is one of the two highest ranked teams making it thru to the third round.
Amherst travels to 11th ranked Swarthmore for Saturday night match under the lights. This will be the second consecutive weekend of NCAA tournament play at Swarthmore. They’ve got a lighted Field Turf soccer field on the site of the old football field. It’s the third consecutive weekend of tournament play there as the Centennial Conference championships were also held at Swarthmore.
Alas, it’s probably the end of the road for both Amherst and Swarthmore this weekend. The winner of their match on Saturday almost certainly faces the #1 ranked 19-0-1 Trinity (Texas) team on Sunday.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:22 am
Mistype. Sorry. I meant men’s and women’s X-country and women’s soccer, but got distracted.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:35 am
Ah, I see I had it right.
What distracted me was this sad note from the Williams Sports website (foreshadowed by a reader’s remark earlier in the day): “This match also marked the final time that the sidelines will be patrolled by the all-time wins leader in Williams volleyball history, as head coach Fran Vandermeer ends her nine-year coaching career at Williams. Under her tenure, the Ephs compiled a record of 254-73, captured six NESCAC titles, and made four trips to the Elite 8.”
(I thought she’d been there longer, but I realize I was confusing her length of service with that of basketball coach Pat Manning.) Anyway, Vandermeer has been a wonderful coach and addition to Williams. I will miss her, and am grateful to have been able to see her work recently through the still-nascent advent of post-season volleyball webcasting. I wish her well wherever she goes and whatever she does from here.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:36 am
Interesing, anyone know the scoop on the volleyball coach? Retiring, moving up to a higher level, etc.? Obviously she has had incredible success. And what a way to retire after an amazing cinderella run for the Ephs, they went as far as they feasibly could have — volleyball is pretty much the only Div-III sport NESCAC teams contend in which even top NESCAC teams never rank in the top five in the country — midwest really dominates in volleyball. (Football would likely be the same, but NESCAC does not compete in the NCAA’s). In, I believe, every other NCAA Div III tourney sport, top NESCAC teams often have a legit shot at wining a national title; not so in Volleyball.
Good luck to women’s soccer and the cross country squads this weekend!
November 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
Wrestling? Golf?
November 21st, 2008 at 8:01 am
Fair enough, those as well (although much of NESCAC doesn’t even have varsity wrestling …)
November 21st, 2008 at 9:06 am
Good recap of the volleyball game by Scott Gleeson in the Eagle. http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_11039680
A few highlight comments:
“’What I really like about Williams is that they played hard throughout the entire match,’”…(the Ohio Northern said. ‘That’s a tremendous character respect thing from their standpoint. It’s hard when you get down and your whole season is on the brink. I have a whole lot of respect for that.’”
and
“Although the season-ending loss may leave a sour taste, the Ephs were extremely proud of what they accomplished during the season after getting off to a rocky start.
“’It was really tough in the beginning to come off such success last year and see our team lose time and time again to teams that we knew we should beat,’ said junior middle-blocker Nicole Ballon-Landa, who finished with a team-high of 12 kills. ‘But by the end of the season, there was just something that came together, something really intangible that brought us all together and brought us basically to where we got the past three weeks.’”