Ben Gottesdiener | Student Life

Sophomore Meghan Byrne sets up for a hit against Carthage College.

On Sunday, a similar comeback ended Wash. U.’s season.

The Lady Reds stormed back, down 2-0, to win the final three sets of the match and take a 3-2 (20-25, 12-25, 25-23, 25-22, 15-11) victory over the Bears in the Washington University Field House, giving them the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship and ending the Bears’ season at 34-2.

“They started playing back when they could,” interim head coach Lisa Orlet said. “[We] just let them get too far ahead, and in a rally-score game, that’s tough to come back from.”

After cruising through 3-0 victories over Webster University (25-17, 25-9, 25-17) and the University of Chicago (25-17, 25-22, 25-16) on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the Bears were one win away from returning to the NCAA championship round next weekend. They were facing a Carthage squad that they had swept four times since the 2009 season, including once on Sept. 9 of this season.

The Bears and Lady Reds fought a back-and-forth first set, and the squads were tied 15-15 when the Bears jumped ahead with a 5-1 run that gave them a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. The team’s ball control in the set was excellent, with 23 digs, led by eight from junior Kelly Pang and seven from junior Marilee Fisher, who also had 12 assists.

They then came out firing in the second set, using an early run of four straight points to take the lead for good in the set. The Bears hit .294 in the set, led by five kills from sophomore Meghan Byrne. Pang had 10 digs in the set, and with Carthage hitting minus-.013 to that point, things were looking good for the Bears.

“Our ball control was great,” Orlet said of the first two sets. “We were passing well, mixing up our offense. We were just firing on all cylinders.”

But Carthage jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the third set, and despite strong efforts from junior Drew Hargrave, senior Lauren Budde and Fisher that helped bring the score back to 23-23, a kill and an error gave Carthage the set.

The Bears jumped all over Carthage at the beginning of the fourth set, as they led 8-2 after more good play from Hargrave and Budde, and they were ahead 19-15 when Carthage went on another run. Five straight points gave the Lady Reds the lead, and after the Bears rallied with two straight points to lead 21-20, Carthage took five of the next six points to force a fifth set.

While the Bears had been in control up to that point, Orlet admitted that the team felt some pressure in the fourth set—compounded by the fact that the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, Calvin and Emory, had already been eliminated.

“I think about halfway through that fourth game the girls started to get a little nervous,” she said. “We talked about when you’re ready to get what you want in life, you’re always going to face a little fear. You gotta keep fighting through it.”

Wash. U. moved ahead 3-1 early in the final set before a run of four straight points from Carthage gave them the decisive lead. The Bears moved within one point three times in the set but couldn’t close the gap. After a kill from Budde brought the Bears within two at 13-11, a kill from Carthage and an attack that went wide from Budde ended the set at 15-11 and the match at 3-2.

For the match, Budde’s 18 kills were a team-high, followed by Byrne’s 16 and Hargrave’s 12. Fisher had 58 assists and 14 digs, while Pang had 35 digs and senior Tricia Brandt had 15. Budde and sophomore Kaia Schwartz both were a part of three blocks. The team hit .206 in the match, compared to .126 for Carthage.

The Bears will graduate four seniors—Budde, Brandt, Brittany Mikottis and Kristen Thomas—who will end their Wash. U. careers with a record of 135-17, two UAA titles and a national championship in 2009.

“In all my years of coaching, it’s one of the classiest groups of women I’ve ever been around,” Orlet said of the seniors.

With everything the team has gone through during the year, including the illness of the wife of head coach Rich Luenemann that led Orlet to take over the main head coaching position for the final month of the season, Orlet was proud of the team for managing to keep things in perspective.

“With everything going on…volleyball’s just a game. That’s the big picture. We didn’t take the season as far as we wanted, and the life lesson here is when you get afraid, you fight back; you feel the fear, play hard anyway. There’s a lot more important things in life. Cherish every moment. Coach [Luenemann] has been telling them that ever since his wife got sick. They’re a classy group of women, and I still couldn’t be more proud of them.”