Pipers are victorious St. Kate’s

Women’s volleyball team wins three out of four games during recent tournament.

Gino Terrell, Senior Reporter

At St. Kate’s, the Pipers volleyball team had a four-game tournament last Friday, Sept. 13, and Saturday, Sept. 14, and managed to pull out three victories.

“That’s big for us,” head coach Becky Egan said. “We were .500 in both our tournaments this preseason and for us to be able to break above that .500 mark was great. It showed the perseverance of the girls; they worked their butts off.”

In their first game in the tournament, the team won in dramatic fashion. After dropping the first two sets against Loras, the team rallied and won three straight sets to win the game 3-2.

“That’s been something that we’ve been trying to accomplish, to push through that adversity,” Egan said.

Unfortunately, they lost the final game on Friday night against UW-Superior. However, they rebounded the next day with two victories to close out the tournament. They defeated Crown 3-0, but endured a tough battle against UW-Stout. They lost the first set to UW-Stout 25-22. Both teams were close in all the matches but the Pipers managed to close the door on UW-Stout for the remaining sets to win 3-1. With every set they won, the team managed to eventually separate themselves, and Egan believed that mental toughness was key in the victory.

“It’s all the intangible stuff…you can’t physically train on the court. It’s all the mental things,” Egan said. “Pushing through, not getting down when [opponents] would get a four point rally on us and still pushing back at them…you talk about the concepts and really never know if it’s going to show up when it matters, and it did tonight.”

The Pipers are 7-5 and will open conference play tonight, Sept. 17, at Hutton Arena at 7:00 p.m. against Concordia.

“They are a very tough team, one of the top in our conference,” Egan said. “We are going to come out guns blazing…we are really hoping to keep pushing at them…“[Concordia is] an opponent who in the past Hamline has struggled against.”

However, she’s hoping the team’s home court advantage will help the team become successful this time around.

“[The fans] are freaking awesome,” she said. “At the tournament they have done an awesome job.”

Their support at the tournament helped the Pipers break the .500 barrier they’ve recorded in previous tournaments.