The Brandeis women’s volleyball team continued its dominant season as it was able to come back from a loss at the start of the week.

Judges 3, Southern Vermont 0

On Saturday, the Judges ended their week with a perfect win, crushing their opponents by scores of 25-2, 25-4 and 25-4. The Judges ended the week strong, taking all three sets with great hitting percentages of .636, .474 and .643, respectively, completely crushing Southern Vermont College and further proving their overall consistency this season. Even with a lower hitting percentage in the second set as compared to the others, the team still put on a stellar performance, making the Judges a huge threat in their division.

Taking a closer look into the sets themselves, about half of the team had a kill percentage of .500 or higher, with outside hitter Shea Decker-Jacoby ’19 hitting .600, right-side hitter Marissa Borgert ’21 crushing .700 and sophomore middle hitter Emma Bartlett ’20 with .500.  In addition,  setter Marlee Nork ’19 hit a perfect 1.000, middle hitter Belle Scott ’21 came away at .583 and middle hitter Kirsten Frauens ’19 ended up at a .500 mark. Thus, the team ended with a dominating average kill percentage of .568. Borgert was again on fire as she had nine service aces and scored a total of 16.5 points throughout all sets. Setter Leah Pearlman ’19 also shined on the court with 11 assists and four service aces, contributing to four points of her own. Team co-captain outside hitter Jillian Haberli ’19 again showed up with the most digs, totaling nine for the match and bringing her season total up to 44.

Judges 1, UMass-Boston 3

On Wednesday night, the Judges began their week with a tough 3-1 loss against the University of Massachusetts-Boston by scores of 14-25, 25-22, 22-25 and 14-25. The Judges did not start off the week on the note they wanted to as they slugged through long sets and were unable to come out on top. While the first set ended in defeat, the team put their all into the second set as they beat UMass-Boston by three points. However, they could not stay strong in the latter part of the match, resulting in the loss.

Although the match ended in defeat, the team made some incredible plays throughout. Pearlman had a perfect kill percentage of 1.000 and added 10 assists. Nork had an incredible match as well with 17 assists and six digs. Team co-captain libero Yvette Cho ’19 had a total of 24 digs and Decker-Jacoby added 18 total digs for the match. Borgert had one of the higher kill percentages of the match at .160 with 10 assists, contributing to a total of 10.5 points for the Judges. Furthermore, Bartlett had a great performance by contributing the most points to the team with 11.5.

Coming out of the week with a win and a loss, the Judges now sit at 5-3 on the season.  After finishing last season with a 7-21 overall record and losing their last 12 games of the year,  this has been a very promising start to the season.  First-year phenoms Borgert and Scott have exploded out of the gate to start their collegiate careers and have already proven themselves as fixtures on this rebuilding squad. Brandeis has proven its impressive potential, athleticism and resilience so far this season. The Judges will look to earn their sixth win of the season today at home against Regis College (Mass.) at 7:00 p.m.