The women’s volleyball team dropped all four of their games this past weekend against University Athletic Association opponents during the second set of UAA round-robin matches, hosted by the University of Chicago. 

The weekend-long round-robin tournament saw them face off against Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Mellon University, No. 3 Emory University and the University of Rochester. 

The weekend losses caused the Judges to fall to an overall record of 5-17 and sit winless at 0-7 in UAA play this year. 

The Judges went into Sunday’s matches against Emory and Rochester trying to rebound after losses against Case Western and Carnegie Mellon the day before. The team knew that the match against Emory would be especially tough. 

Setter Julie Kim ’18 said that the team went into the difficult matches with the right attitude, even if their effort was not reflected in the final scores of the games.

“[The team] went into these matches knowing we had nothing to lose, and that mentality definitely helped us stay positive in our fight,” she said.  

The Judges held their own against Emory, particularly in the second set, but lost in straight sets, 25-14, 25-18, 25-8. There were some bright spots as libero Elsie Bernaiche ’15 played stellar defense with 13 digs and setter Maggie Swenson ’16 recorded 18 assists. 

The second game of the day against Rochester had the Judges falling 25-18, 25-9, 20-25, 25-12. The match marked the only game that the team would win throughout the entire weekend. 

The Judges had a balanced offensive attack in the game as four different players had five or more kills on the match. 

Bernaiche kept up her solid defense with an outstanding 32 digs, which was more than the rest of the squad combined. 

Kim had a good individual effort as well for the squad with 16 assists on the contest. 

The Judges played their best volleyball in the third set but were unable to keep the momentum going in the fourth set. They were only able to record four kills in the set, during which Rochester never trailed. 

The Judges did not fare much better during Saturday’s games. Their first game of the day against Case saw the team fall 25-16, 25-17, 25-10. 

Once again, Bernaiche was spectacular as she recorded a game-high 26 digs, 10 more than any player on either team. 

Even with their libero giving an incredible performance, the rest of the team could not step up and give the Judges much of a chance, outscored in assists by Case 30-22 during the match. 

Like the first game on Saturday, the team struggled in the third set, and Kim pointed to the third set as a vital point to work on in practice. 

“Moving forward, I think we need to work on finishing matches in order to get that win,” she said.

The second game of the day had the Judges again losing in straight sets to Carnegie 25-7, 25-9, 25-18. 

 Jessie Moore ’18—who led the squad’s offense with kill totals of seven, five and five in the other three matches—only recorded one kill in the match. 

The team as a whole struggled immensely on the offensive side as they only had 22 kills compared to Carnegie’s 53. 

However, there was one major positive to take away from the contest against Carnegie—the squad’s ability to bounce back in the match’s third set. 

After struggling in the first two sets and playing poorly all tournament long in third sets, the team managed to be competitive in the third set against Carnegie.

The squad had 18 points in the set, more than their first two sets combined and their highest in the third set on the weekend excluding the Rochester game.

The result leaves the Judges seeded eighth for the upcoming UAA Championships, hosted by Carnegie on Nov. 8 and 9.  

The team will look to get back on track this weekend with matches against Middlebury College, Tufts University and Amherst College at the Hall of Fame Tournament hosted by Amherst.

 “Now [that] we are going back to playing New England teams, we are expecting to use what we have learned from the UAAs to finish the rest of the season on a positive note,” Kim said.

The Judges open the Hall of Fame Tournament versus Middlebury on Friday afternoon at 5 p.m., take on Amherst on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m and square off against Tufts on Saturday at 4 p.m.