Heading into the weekend’s match ups, the Buffalo State women’s volleyball team (10-11), hoped to fix their continued mistakes against out-of-conference opponents John Carroll and Hiram University in Ohio. Unfortunately, the Bengals continued their struggle to find wins, falling to both opponents by a score of 3-1 against Hiram and 3-0 against John Carroll.

With senior Hannah Renaldo missing from the lineup, the Bengals had their work cut out for them.

In the first match of the weekend, Buffalo State struggled to keep pace with 12-11 John Carroll, registering a hit percentage of only 10 percent compared to John Carroll’s thirty five percent.

Buffalo State tried to create a spark by moving starting setter Jennifer Cecchettini over to outside hitter where she stepped up with eight kills on the night. However, with 18 errors, the Bengals often dug themselves into a hole too big.

Rachelle Kelchlin continued her season-long consistent play with 14 digs and 2 assists on the night.

John Carroll seemed to have the momentum throughout the entire match. They distributed the ball around very well with 44 assists and only 5 errors.

The players know they can keep up with any team, but the Bengals have had trouble closing out games.

“We have to improve on the little things like quick transitioning and executing free balls,” head coach Maria DePeters said. “This week in practice, we’re going to be sticking to the basics.”

The second match in Ohio started off better for Buffalo State, but still ended up with the same disappointing result. Against the Hiram Terriers, Buffalo State jumped on the first set, taking it 25-13. After that, Buffalo State dropped the next three to fall to 10-13 on the season.

Registering only 19 assists was an issue for the team, but the errors continued to pile up and were also a big factor in the loss.

Kayla Pyc and Jennifer Cecchettini continued their impressive play for the Bengals as Pyc led the team with 10 kills and Cecchettini finished with 18 assists and 11 digs.

Cecchettini mirrored her coach’s thoughts about how the Bengals need to improve to get to the postseason.

“We’re going to really go back to basics this week,” she said. “We have to push harder than we ever have in preparation and make sure we have a flow for this coming weekend. We need to perfect the little things like blocking and serve-receive.”

In the SUNYAC standings, the Bengals are 10-13 with a 2-4 record in SUNYAC play. Currently on a five-game losing streak, Buffalo State is on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs.

Six teams get into the SUNYAC tournament, and Buffalo State currently sits at eighth. They will need to put together a nice winning streak to move past Geneseo and Fredonia. Both the coaches and players believe they can still save this season.

“The girls truly care about one another’s improvement,” assistant coach Leanne Maloney said. “When we do drills against each other in practice, they will give high fives under the net or stop a drill to point something out to one another. They really are a little family and I think it shows.”

The Bengals will hope to get back on track as they take on first-place Brockport next Friday.

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