NCAA Division III tournament when they swept Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference rival Saint Vincent 25-20, 25-20, 25-13 to win the AMCC tournament last Saturday afternoon at the Robert S. Carey Center in Latrobe, PA.
“We reached the goals we had set early in the season and that obviously means a lot when you are going through a long season and we are working hard to accomplish what we set out to do and it is obviously fulfilling to the guys when they obviously do that,” said Coach Glen Conley.
The Terriers will try to capture the program’s first victory in the NCAA tournament when they take on Stevens University in the first round on Friday in Hoboken, NJ.
“We are very excited about the opportunity,” said the third-year coach. “It will be very difficult because a couple of those teams have won national championships, so it is going to quite a challenge, but I know that the guys are up to it.”
On Saturday, the Terriers (20-11, 8-1) got off to a fast start in the first set, taking a 13-7 advantage and continued to hold the lead until St. Vincent College made a run. With Hiram holding a 21-14 lead, the Bearcats staged a 5-0 run, capitalizing off of four Terrier attacking errors to trim their lead to 21-19.
According to Conley, Hiram expected the Terriers make a run.
“When teams start to make a run on you, the tendency is to try and stop it and hit harder and to try to do something that maybe is not there or to try and create something that does not exist at that time,” he added. “You have to be patient and we just were not very patient in that run.”
Hiram outscored the Bearcats 4-1 to close out the first set and then it became a game of runs in the second set. After Saint Vincent went on a 3-1 surge to cut the Terriers’ lead to 20-19, Hiram erupted for four unanswered points to seize control and clinch the victory.
Conley said Hiram’s blocking improved near the end of the second set and its blocking frustrated the Bearcats so much that it forced them to play out of their system.
He added that once the Terriers went up 2-0, they could smell the blood in the water and were fueled by a 5-0 spur at the beginning of the third set to take a commanding 9-4 advantage and never relinquished the lead en route to their second AMCC championship in the last four years.
“I do not think I said anything to the team but I just came in when we were leading 2-0 and there were a lot of spicy words being said in the huddle that we were not going to lose this and it was very exciting for me to see,” Conley noted.
In a match between the top two hitting teams in the conference, Hiram’s defense stifled the Bearcats’ attack, holding them to a .000 hitting percentage while recording a .162 hitting percentage.
“They blocked us pretty well but we were just able to get a few more kills,” Conley said.. A lot of it is due to our block but also the defense. We were in a system and we were swinging and had really good swings in almost every serve that they put up. It was very impressive.”
Hiram’s victory marked the second time in the last three seasons that the program reached the 20-win mark under Conley. Hiram had come a long way since its last match against the Bearcats when they were swept 3-0 on Feb. 28.
Conley said he issued a challenge to his team after the match to not lose another one and control their own fate and become one of 16 teams that nabbed a berth in the NCAA Division III tournament for only the second time in school history.
He acknowledged that it was a steep challenge to issue to a team that was still struggling to find its footing, but the Terriers met his challenge by winning their final seven matches of the regular season to earn the number two seed in the AMCC tournament.
Hiram is entering the NCAA Division III tournament riding a nine-match winning streak, matching the school record.
“Coaches give credit when we win but you have to have the best players and I have seen them every day in practice and I just felt like we had the best players and that is what I kept telling the team,” he said.
