Men’s Volleyball cards first tournament wins in organization history
The men’s club volleyball team has started their fall season strong, taking two tournament wins in their first competition of the year. The club, which sends their A and B teams to competitions statewide, is a Division II club team recognized by the National Club Volleyball Federation and the Eastern Collegiate Volleyball Association. This past weekend, they attended a massive tournament hosted by 12-time state champions and two-time conference champions SUNY Brockport. Competition on Sunday included a total of 16 teams across ten schools, all conference competitors: Cornell, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University at Buffalo, Stony Brook University, St. Bonaventure University, Syracuse University, Binghamton University, and Geneseo’s friendly rivals the Oswego Kraken all brought teams.
The tournament began with some unconventional pool play for Geneseo–in past tournaments, a playoff bracket has been decided by winning sets–but for this one, brackets were determined by point differential, making every single point count. The Geneseo A team battled Oswego B, Cornell B, and UB A in their pool play, and suffered some tough losses. Team A lost two of their three matches: 25-11 and 25-15 to Cornell B, and 25-17 and 25-22 to UB A. They then came back strong against Oswego B, winning 25-10 and 25-7 to finish at only -2 in point differential, giving them the four-seed in the silver bracket. Geneseo B was handed a tough pool lineup, but handled it well and kept their point differential low despite losing all three matches: 25-16 and 25-11 to Syracuse, 25-22 and 25-13 to Binghamton A, and 25-22 in both sets to St. Bonaventure, finishing pool play at -44, but high enough to take the two-seed in the Bronze bracket.
For the playoffs, Geneseo A was placed in their playoff bracket with Stony Brook, Binghamton B, UB B, St. Bonaventure, and RIT. They won their first match against five-seed Bonaventure 25-14 and an uncomfortably close 26-24, then went on to play two-seed Binghamton B and won 25-23 and 25-17. Geneseo A then took down six-seed RIT 25-18 at 25-21 to win the Silver bracket in a clean sweep. Geneseo B dominated their playoff bracket as well, taking down three-seed Oswego B 25-21 in both sets and upsetting top-seeded Oswego A 25-23 in both sets, making for another Geneseo sweep and the Bronze bracket win. Sophomore middle and B team co-captain Brendan Pigott credits the team’s success to the energy supplied both on the court and the sidelines by his teammates (most notably, sophomore right side Tommy Back), as well as his undefeated Rock-Paper-Scissors run to determine the serve (5-0).
The two successful playoff runs by both the Geneseo teams make for the first wins recorded in the history of the club. The most recent generation of the organization, having been revived just under a year ago, has already made some incredible steps in making themselves a force to be reckoned with and proving that this time, they’re here to stay. The Men’s Volleyball Knights hope to extend their winning streak at their next tournament, hosted by the University at Buffalo on Nov. 13.