Cortland club volleyball remains humble with their 3rd place finish at the Division 1 league championship tournament at Villanova, with Cortland being the only Division 3 team there.
Cortland ended pool play with a 2-1 record. The top two teams in your division advance to the playoffs. With Syracuse and Cortland tied at the end of pool play, they needed to play an extra set to determine the rankings for playoffs.
“It was one of the biggest games of the tournament,” said Liz Serafin. “All the years I’ve been here, Cuse has always been our enemy. We had to play clean, make no mistakes and play our asses off if we wanted to win.”
It’s always a back and forth game with these teams, with the electrifying spikes to the nail-biting rallies, volleyball matches often unfold in an unpredictable manner, keeping players and spectators on the edge of their seats.
Cortland’s monster rally got the team on their feet, screaming with excitement. A huge hit from the right side by Katie Priest soured the Dragons to get the win over Syracuse.
“To be honest, I didn’t even know it was the last point,” said Katie. “I was just so focused on getting the next point and when I got the final point, I saw my bench running over cheering. That’s when I realized we had beaten Cuse.”
Going into the first round of playoffs, Cortland faced Northeastern. Northeastern is known to be good at sports, with their men’s club volleyball team being ranked 3rd in the nation.
“They didn’t seem too special when we watched them play,” said Ashley Berstein. “If we keep up the clean volleyball we’ve been playing, they shouldn’t be a problem.”
Cortland took an early 5 point lead from great defense from the back row. Northeastern was gaining momentum towards the final points of the game. It was tied 20-20 and Cortland didn’t hold back. Outside hitter Nikki Hladik came out with two strong serves that put Cortland up by two.
Cortland’s great defense and aggressive hitting ended up getting Cortland 5 straight points to win the first round of playoffs and get them into the semi-finals to face Delaware University.
“I knew we would only win this game if we put pressure on them,” said Nikki. “I was so nervous when I had to serve. I didn’t want to miss or give them an easy ball to pass, so I stayed aggressive and got 2 aces from it.”
The stakes are high as Cortland takes on Delaware for a chance to play in the finals. The match didn’t go the way Cortland wanted. Many of the players were exhausted by the time the semi-finals came around. Delaware took advantage of that and beat Cortland.
“We all got so lazy, there was no energy,” said Liz. “Delaware was a good team and we just didn’t have the stamina they did. I’m proud about how we played considering we are a Division 3 team competing in a Division 1 league tournament.”
Delaware ended up taking first place at the Division 1 league championship.