The Waynesburg University volleyball team has struggled since recording its first win in the first match of the year against Pitt Greensburg.

After traveling to Washington, Pennsylvania for a tri-match against Presidents’ Athletic Conference rivals Washington & Jefferson and Grove City this past Saturday, Sept. 9, the team hosted another PAC rival, the Thiel Tomcats. Unfortunately, the Yellow Jackets were unable to come away victorious, dropping all three conference matches.

It started with the women falling to W&J 3-0. Then, the team struggled against Grove City, also getting swept by the conference opponent.

After losing 25-22 in the first set against W&J, head coach Stephanie Benkowski felt her team did a poor job recovering as they lost the next set 25-7.

“Overall, we did play horrible,” Benkowski said. “I mean, the first and third set we didn’t play horrible, but the second set was really rough.”

In the Grove City match, Benkowski thought her team wasn’t able to come back from falling off in the first W&J set.

“I don’t think to be honest we recovered from the W&J game. I think we had our heads down and we never came out of it no matter what we tried,” said Benkowski. “It wasn’t working, so we tried different things, but we never recovered.”

On Tuesday, Sept. 12, the Yellow Jackets were home against the Thiel Tomcats and first-year head coach Tyler North. According to North, his team’s fast-paced offense was on fire. The Tomcats had 25 more kills than the Jackets with 40 kills total.

“The fact we are not the biggest team overall to run it fast helps us so we can get a little more one-on-one,” said North. “But, as you saw, when it goes a little awry it’s a little risky, but [it’s] risk-reward. We are playing the percentages, [and we feel] the risk outweighs the reward.”

In the backcourt was sophomore libero Alyssa Proper, who had the duties of staying in the backcourt all game and trying to work with other back row players to adjust to the quick passing game.

“We tried to take away the line shot – that was a big one. It took us a couple sets, but after that we tried to pinch in and they hit deep,” said Proper.

Benkowski believes her team needs to be more open and pay attention to what she is telling them to make those adjustments. She also added that they have seen fast teams like Thiel in the past, but were slow Tuesday night.

“We were trying to adjust but they have to listen and actually make those adjustments,” said Benkowski. “We have seen other teams run that today. We were just slow.”

Proper was a bright spot for the Jackets in the loss, according to Benkowski. She said the second-year starter libero helped lead her team.

“She’s our quarterback of our back row,” said Benkowski. “She’s always moving and passing balls. I mean, she does a good job.”

Benkowski said one of the biggest struggles during the night was blocking.

“It’s not about hitting hard, it’s about getting around the block and we opted to not do that today,” said Benkowski.

The volleyball team will be back Thursday, Sept. 14 against W&J.