The Waynesburg University volleyball team had two home matches Saturday as part of a tri-match at the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse. The first match was against fellow Presidents’ Athletic Conference member Thiel.

The other was against head coach Hayley Kirby’s former school, Earlham. Waynesburg lost both matches in straight sets. In the first match against Thiel, the Jackets looked uncomfortable. 

 

“Thiel is good, they had a good game today, but we just did not,” Kirby said. “Our defense was pretty good, our blocking could be a little bit better, but I would say those are our strong suits. We just kept making dumb hitting errors.” 

Waynesburg was never got anything going against Thiel. They lost set one 25-9, set two 25-11 and  set three 25-15.

 It was a match Kirby said she definitely wants to forget. In the second match, Waynesburg played against Earlham, which Kirby enjoyed because of her history there. 

“It’s fun because I know a lot of them and I know who to serve to, where their blocks are and I just know a lot about them,” Kirby said. “It is fun because I get to tell my players their weaknesses because I know them very well.”

Even though Earlham swept Waynesburg in three sets, Kirby thinks her team played well and hopes it can continue to play that way. 

“I think in the second match we played great, what I told them [after the math] is if we play like we did in that second match we definitely would have won the first one,” she said. “I hope that we can play like how we just did against other teams because if we do that we are going to challenge a lot of the schools in the conference and I think we might be able to beat them if we play like that all the time.” 

Earlham won set one 25-18,  set two 25-14 and set three 25-15. Waynesburg is now 2-11 overall and 0-4 in the PAC. 

The Jackets’ next match is Thursday, Oct. 3, in the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse against Penn State Altoona. The match is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. For Kirby, if Waynesburg plays the way it did against Earlham, it will have success going forward. 

“For some reason, we tend to play better against better teams,” Kirby said. “So, I think that if we played like we did in this game against opponents that are not as strong as Earlham was, I think we will be fine.”