Posted: Aug 22, 2022

Pioneers Come Home 1-3 After a Competitive Weekend in Wilmington

The Spartanburg Methodist College volleyball team opened the 2022-2023 season at the Cape Fear Invitational in Wilmington, NC. With a stacked tournament schedule of Cape Fear, University of Mount Olive, Fayetteville State, and ECSU, the Pioneers had to battle both days.

Cape Fear & UMO

The home team brought the energy as the gym was packed for this match. That did not bother the Pioneers as they played aggressively and capitalized on the unforced errors the Sea Devils made. They pulled out a tough first-set win of 25-21. Cape Fear came out with a new lineup and SMC could never replicate their first set victory. Sets two, three, and four were a similar storyline of SMC letting Cape Fear go on too many runs and having to gain that ground back, thus running out of gas at the end of those sets.

UMO being a challenging four-year program outplayed the Pioneers on speed and strength. The three-set loss boiled down to the serve, serve receive game. UMO kept the Pioneers out of system most of the match and could easily defend our offense due to it.

Fayetteville State & ECSU

With a new day, came new opportunities for the Pioneers to succeed. After a slow start and first set lost to the Broncos, the Pioneers crushed FSU in the second and third. The fourth set had been a mirror of our first and held too many passing and hitting errors. After regrouping, the Pioneers gutted out a fifth set win of 15-13 thus marking their first season win and program win for Coach Brittany Farrell.

Coming off a long five-set win, the Pioneers did not slow down by winning the first set vs. ECSU in a demanding fashion. Like the Cape Fear match previously, sets two, three, and four were a combination of letting our opponents go on long runs, and running out of points to close the gap. The Pioneers blew a 19-15 lead in the fourth to give ECSU the win instead of taking it to five.

“Consistency was a huge theme for us this weekend. There were two scenarios that usually occurred in our matches. One being we would let our opponents go on long runs, then we’d have to work our way back into the match just to let them go one another run. Or we would pull ahead and let them slowly chip away at our lead. In all three matches that we lost we controlled that score. We’re a young team operating on a roller-coaster right now playing-wise. Once we adjust the small things, we could really make some noise in the NJCAA this year.”