Johns Hopkins W-Volleyball Defeat Swarthmore, 3-1, To Take Centennial Conf. Championship

BALTIMORE, Md. – Coming into this weekend, there was major buzz around the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays campus as they were hosting four separate championships being the top seed in each one.  Maybe they’ll re-think that as only one of the top seeds won their championship and that was the Blue Jays Women’s Volleyball Team in front of crowd of 204 Sunday afternoon at Goldfarb Gym.

Blue Jays Freshman sensation OH Simone Bliss had a match-high 16 kills and teammate Senior OH Elizabeth Wuerstle would add 11 kills of her own with five service aces and the #1 seed Johns Hopkins defeated #2 seed Swarthmore Garnet, three sets to one (20-25; 25-16; 25-16; 25-19) to win the 2017 Centennial Conference Women’s Volleyball Championship and the automatic bid into the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Tournament.

Sophomore OH Mehra den Braven led the Garnet with eight kills in the defeat.

Bliss got the Blue Jay on the scoreboard for the first two points of the first set with back to back kills.  Swarthmore responded with three points in a row to take their first lead at 3-2.  The rest of set was pretty tight as it saw 14 ties and seven lead changes before the Garnet would take the lead for good when a bad set error from Blue Jays Freshman S/MB Natalie Aston and Swarthmore was up 20-19.   A 5-1 run closed out the first set for the Garnet, winning the set, 25-20, on an attack error from Blue Jays Senior S/MB Kristi Rhead.

Johns Hopkins dominated the entire second set, never trailing at any point.  The Blue Jays raced out to a 6-0 lead before the Garnet scored the first point on a den Braven kill. Another 6-3 Johns Hopkins run of points stretched their lead to 12-4 before Swarthmore would finally go on a 4-0 mini-run to close the gap to 12-8.  But Johns Hopkins wouldn’t let up and went on a 7-3 run, causing the Garnet to call time-out with the Blue Jays up 19-11.  Out of the time out, Swarthmore did score the next two points to make it 19-13 before Johns Hopkins went on a final 6-3 run to win the second set, 25-16 and tie the match at one set each.

Keeping their feet on the pedals, the Blue Jays doubled up the Garnet, 12-6, causing Swarthmore to call time out.  The time out did little to slow down Johns Hopkins as they would go on a 8-5 run from there and Swarthmore had to call it’s final time out of the third set, trailing 20-11.  A 3-0 mini-run by the Garnet got them to within 20-14, but a nice 5-2 run closed out the third set (they won the set on a kill by Wuerstle), 25-16 and the Blue Jays had a two sets to one lead, only one set away from the championship.

For Swarthmore, they held the lead only once in the fourth and final set of the match, scoring on the first point with a kill by Senior OH Bridget Scott. From there, Johns Hopkins and Swarthmore would exchange points until the score was tied at 6-6.  A 5-0 Blue Jays run put them up 11-6 and the Garnet called time out.  But it didn’t stop the Johns Hopkins score train, as the Blue Jays extended the lead to 13-6 before Swarthmore scored the next point.  Johns Hopkins held it’s championship point at 24-18 but den Braven’s kill gave the Garnet the last glimer of hope at 24-19, as on the next point, an attack error by Swarthmore Senior MB Alice Liu gave Johns Hopkins the fourth set, 25-19 and the Blue Jays won the match, three sets to one and the celebration started.

This is the second consecutive year that the Blue Jays have won the Centennial Conference Women’s Volleyball Championship and secure the automatic bid into the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Tournament, which will begin later this week.

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Erick Seltzer

Served in the US Navy as a journalist between 2/25/1991 & 9/15/1993. My duty station was Naval Submarine Base, Bangor in Silverdale, Washington. I was one of the writers for the weekly publication, "Trident Tides." While there, I successfully started the first-ever coverage of sports on and off the base to much positive response. When it comes to sports, I either play it, watch it and/or write about it. I'm always open to suggestions and hope you enjoy what I write about. Please feel free to leave a comment here or to get in contact me with, email me @ frederick.seltzer@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing back from the readers and teams.

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