The dominant Pittsburgh Steelers “Steel Curtain” defense of the seventies was able to make dangerous offensive teams appear tame during its several championship seasons.
Likewise, the Pittsburgh Penguins teams of the nineties consistently bombarded their helpless foes with offensive bombs. Friday night, the Massachusetts volleyball team saw shades of both Steel City teams in being shut down by its latest conference opponent.
The Minutewomen fell to Duquesne 3-1 in Pittsburgh, as the Dukes came out with a solid performance on both sides of the ball.
The home team exploded out of the blocks to convincingly take the first two games, before the Maroon and White rebounded in the third frame. Still, the Duquesne attack proved to be too much, as the Minutewomen dropped their second straight Atlantic 10 contest.
“We didn’t come out of the gates as hard as we needed,” Head Coach Bonnie Kenny said. “We just played two good games and two bad ones.”
Senior leader Lauren Vander Veen led the UMass attack by knocking down 15 kills while junior Clare Baxter continued her recent strong play by contributing 14 kills on the evening.
Senior Janeen DeMarte (9 kills, 10 digs) and freshman Carol Mattos (10 kills, 9 digs) also had strong outings for the Maroon and White, but the team could not match the offensive and defensive intensity of the Dukes.
“They played a nice, balanced attack, but we just couldn’t get it going offensively,” Kenny said. “We just didn’t terminate. They hit over .350 in each game [that they won], and that was the difference.”
The Minutewomen were down two games before they even knew what hit them, as the Dukes’ offensive outburst gave them the first two sets of the game by scores of 30-22 and 30-19, respectively.
The team from the Steel City committed only four errors in each of those games for exceptional hitting percentages of .378 and .359 respectively.
However, the Maroon and White exited the locker room with somewhat of a spark, as they built a 17-13 lead into a 25-13 advantage, led by three aces from sophomore Nitia Small. The Minutewomen eventually won the third game 30-22 to cut their deficit to 2-1.
UMass was unable to cut into the Duquesne advantage further, however, as both squads battled in a tightly contested game in which the home team prevailed.
With the score knotted up at 25, Duquesne slowly pulled away, and finished the match off with two blocks to send the Maroon and White back to Amherst with a 3-5 record in Atlantic 10 play (9-7 overall).
“Our middle did well hitting-wise, but we didn’t block well,” Kenny said. “That’s why their offense was so successful.”
Now, the Minutewomen will look to regroup tonight by taking a break from their conference schedule to clash with interstate rival Harvard.
The Crimson comes into this evening’s home matchup with a record of 8-5, and has won four of its last six matches. The team’s well-balanced attack is led by superstar freshman Kaego Ogbechie (team-leading 3.81 kills/game) and senior Erin Denniston (3.78 kills/game).
Kenny singled out Ogbechie as being a player to watch on Harvard, noting, “she could have went pretty much anywhere in the country” but opted instead to play for the Crimson.
The Maroon and White is in the midst of a difficult Atlantic 10 season and faces an extremely tough Temple team this weekend, which swept UMass in Philadelphia earlier this year.
However, the Minutewomen cannot overlook their Ivy League opponent in preparation for their rematch on Friday night.
“We have to be prepared to play Friday,” Kenny said. “They’re going to be a lot tougher this year.”
Game time is 7 p.m. tonight at Curry Hicks Cage.
