The first game of the season is a chance for both teams to work out the kinks left over from preseason practice. But when women's volleyball dropped its season opener Friday night to St. John's, a team already 11 games into its season, most of the kinks were on the Princeton side of the net.
The Red Storm (6-5) swept the Tigers 3-0 (30-26, 30-26, 30-27) at Dillon Gym Friday night to get the Princeton (0-1) season off to an unhappy start.
Senior Michelle Buffum and junior Kellie Cramm, coach Glenn Nelson's starting outside hitters, combined for 27 kills, but St. John's freshman outside hitter Jackie Ahlers was the offensive highlight, racking up 19 kills on 47 attacks and 11 digs. Senior teammate Sarah McCrary added 15 kills on 30 attacks and 12 digs for the Red Storm, and junior setter Robyn Kuraski picked up a game-high 45 assists.
Junior setter Kerry Song backed up Cramm's defense with eight digs, and sophomore middlebacker Alex Brown was third on the team with six. Brown and freshman Lauren Grumet were third on the team with five kills each.
The Tigers begin their season 0-1, but not without optimism. Freshman setter Jenny Senske looked sharp in her first intercollegiate game, picking up 36 assists with consistently accurate sets and one kill on her only attack of the game.
The team made just three service errors while picking up seven aces and improved its kill efficiency in every game.
"The match served its purpose as a 'first game' in that I think we needed the pressured opportunity to begin to work as a team," Buffum said. "With Jenny coming in as a freshman to set — a position where she touches every other ball and is expected to run the show — for a team she's only worked with for one week, I think the match went well."
Princeton fell behind early in all three games of the best-of-five match and could not close the gap. St. John's benefited from a higher kill efficiency in all three games (.275-.125, .312-.200, .417-.355) as it thwarted Princeton's comeback attempts throughout the match.
"The 3-0 score does little justice to show our competitiveness in each game," Buffum said.
The Red Storm pushed itself over the .500 mark with the victory and had ten more games of experience this season to help its cause. Both Buffum and Cramm noted that that experience was a factor in Friday's outcome.
"St. Johns is lucky to have caught us this early on in the season," Buffum said.
"The team has a lot of potential this year," Cramm said, "but it is going to take us a couple of games to get things sorted out. We have some new faces on the court and we just need time to play together. There is no question the effort is there, everyone played very hard, but being back on the court for the first time this year can be intimidating."
St. John's has won six of its last seven matches after dropping its first four games to Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Stony Brook. In its six wins, the Red Storm has won 18 of 20 games played.
The Tigers have a few more tune-ups before Ivy League play begins, starting with a match against St. Peter's tonight at 7:00 at Dillon Gym.
This weekend, Princeton travels to Lawrenceville for the Rider Tournament, then hosts Long Island University and Juniata before opening conference play at Penn on October 4. The Tigers will face each Ivy League opponent twice — once in Princeton and once at the opposing venue.
Buffum and Cramm are convinced that the first-game loss is just a little stumble to start what they believe will be a great season.
"I am confident that once our offense gets more in sync we can run the middles more to draw the block," said Buffum. "If we polish up our defense, be more disciplined and consistent, we will be unstoppable."
"Our consistency is coming back," Cramm said, "but it will take a couple matches before we are set."
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