The tournament opened up Friday in Dods after some drama occured earlier in the day. A bat was captured on the east side of Dods gym after he was spotted in the early morning. He was not hamred and professionally released back into the wild but only after he wished the Blue Devils good luck on the weekend. Now when I refer to Dods Gym as the "Bat Cave" it is more appropriate and hopefully more humorous.Pitt-Greensburg was the first opponent and the Devils won 25-9, 25-18, 25-18. We welcomed the return of Kaitlin Orcutt back into the lineup. She is only back on a limited basis but really played well for not playing in a long while. She finished with 3 kills, her first of the season, in one set! The team hit .356 with Chelsea, Linds and Jenny each putting away 6 kills.
Sage College was the final match of Friday and we won 25-8, 25-15, 29-27. Emily has a great match with 10 kills hitting .769. Reanne also was a major contributor with 7 kills (.750). The team hit .356 for the second straight match. Zureck and Mick each had 4 aces. The third set was craziness with Sage fighting off 4 match points and failing to convert 4 set points of their own before finally losing the deciding set. Dods was packed Friday night and every fan went home having been entertained.
Saturday morning we played against SUNYAC East rival Oneonta. They are a strong team with some dynamic players that can terminate the ball. They never stop working and it proved to be an exciting match. Fredonia prevailed 25-20, 25-20, 25-15. Defensively we "did work" and picked up everything that Oneonta threw at us. We wanted that to be the difference in the match and it was. Zesus had 10 digs (with 4 more aces) and Brit, Linds, and Lo each had 6. Our offense performed equally as well hitting .340 led by Hannah (10 kills) Jenny (9) and Chelsea (7 / .538). The championship match against Capital didn't go our way and it took us while to get going. We gave Capital big leads at the start of all three sets and we didn't overcome. Jenny Newhouse was a bright spot with 8 kills (.353) and 2 blocks.
A 3-1 weekend was a successful one and Jenny and Brit both were voted to the All-Tournament team by the coaches of all eight teams in attendance. Congrats to the both of them!