Despite tearing through the Presidents’ Athletic Conference in the regular season, the Hiram Terriers’ volleyball team learned about the intensity of postseason play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III postseason. The Terriers were swept by conference rival Grove City 25-20, 25-20, 25-23 in the PAC championship last Saturday evening at the Coleman Center’s Price Gymnasium.
“We had an interesting run in the tournament that is for sure,” said Coach Macy Roell. “Grove City just came out electric on Saturday. They were just in sync and unfortunately, we were not.”
Throughout Hiram’s (26-3, 15-1) breakout season in the PAC, they won 12 consecutive home matches but suffered their first home defeat of the season on Saturday, ending their season just shy of earning a berth in the NCAA Division III tournament.
On Saturday, the Terriers fell into 2-0 hole, losing the first two sets against Grove City as they struggled to gain offensive consistency. In the third set, Hiram lead throughout the match and held a 21-17 advantage.
According to the first-year coach, capturing victory in the third set could have turned the momentum and positioned the Terriers to send the match to five sets. Grove City had other ideas, going on a 5-1 run and knotting the score at 22-22.
Hiram recaptured the lead 23-22 as the Wolverines committed a violation on a kill attempt but Grove City responded with a 3-0 surge, winning the third set to end Hiram’s season.
“We had the lead most of the game but again they just sided out well at the end of the game and went on really important serving runs,” said Roell. “Honestly they traveled with a good number of fans, and they were creating their own energy.”
It marked the end of a dominant showing by the Terriers in their inaugural season in the PAC, amassing a 15-1 record in conference play to earn the top seed in the PAC tournament and home court advantage in each match.
Hiram conquered Saint Vincent College 23-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-21 in the quarterfinal on Nov. 11 and then mounted a comeback victory against Westminster College, winning 25-15, 15-25, 19-25, 25-15, 15-12 on Nov. 13 to earn a championship berth against Grove City, a team that they had dueled competitively against twice already and prevailed each time in the regular season.
“They were definitely well-prepared and both of our matches this season against them have been incredibly close, so they were not going to let that happen a third time,” Roell noted.
According to Roell, the Wolverines enjoyed a fast start in the first set and never relinquished control, soaring to a 25-20 victory, sparked by some stout defense at the net, limiting Hiram to only 11 kills out of 53 attempts.
“Grove City was siding out effectively and they were going on big runs,” she added. “We got stuck in service a few too many times and it felt no matter where we put the ball, they were already there so they did a great job preparing.”
The Wolverines’ defense continued presenting Hiram with problems in the second set and dominated on offense, recording 15 kills out of 44 attempts, for a kill rate of 29.5%.
“We are a bit undersized in the front row, so it has not happened a lot this year, but we have seen it and we were just trying to get everybody to calm down,” Roell said. “Grove City is a very good blocking team and when you add in the defense behind the block, it is very hard to beat a team like that.”
Although the Terriers’ season ended, Roell praised her team for their dominant showing in the 2025 campaign, given it was their first year competing in the PAC.
“We have a bunch of underclassmen that were in pretty critical roles, but we are also losing our senior setter, libero and middle blocker, so those are pretty key positions to fill but I am pretty confident we have the personnel to do that,” she said.
The Terriers will say goodbye to senior setter Kelly Hoffman, libero Brooke Fishback and middle blocker Riley Franch. Roell highlighted how valuable the Hiram trio was to the squad both on and off of the court.
Although Hiram’s season has come to a close, Roell cited the promise that the squad shows in the coming years given the significant contributions from the underclassmen that fueled the team to the conference championship round.
