Northampton, MA. - The Smith College volleyball team beat Middlebury College 3-2 and took their first loss of the season at the hands of Gallaudet University in the earlier game of the first day of the 3rd Annual Bonnie May Invitational. 

Highlights

• The first match of the tournament featured Smith taking on the Gallaudet Bison. 

• The first set of the evening started off with a back and forth score with Smith starting with an early 10-6 lead. 

• Smith would continue to extend the score to 18-13. The team would finish the set winning 25-17. 

• Abby Hunt led the way for Smith as she led the team with 18 kills. Smith would drop the next two sets allowing Gallaudet to gain a 2-1 advantage heading into the fourth set. 

• In the fourth set, Smith would get out to a four point lead with help from a four point service run from Sarah Dankovich (El Paso, TX/Coronado). 

• Smith would continue to fight for a fifth set, not allowing Gallaudet back in, as a four point run from Taylor Gwynne (Chapel HIll, NC/Carrborro) pushed them near a fifth set. The four point run was topped off by a kill by Abby Sweeney (Spring, TX/Klein). 

• In the fifth set, Smith and Gallaudet would go toe-toe as it was back and forth the whole time, with Gallaudet coming out victorious 15-13.

• Coming off a fifth set match the game before Smith would come out slow in their second match against Middlebury. 

• The first set went in the direction of the visitors as Middlebury came in and won 25-14. 

• In the second and third set, Smith turned it up. Danovich and Ari Cross (Milwaukee, WI/Rufus King) would go on long serving runs and push the Middlebury team back to allow Smith to regain the lead. 

• In the fourth set, Smith got behind but just could not get it back going before losing the set 25-22 allowing for a fifth set. This would be Smith's tenth set played on the day.

• In the firth set, Smith got off to a slow start, allowing Middlebury get off to a quick 10-4 lead. The visitors would extend the lead to 13-6, and were looking to close the game but Smith had other plans.

• Down 13-6, Taylor Gwynne (Chapel HIll, NC/Carrborro) would go on a nine point service run capped off with back to back Abby Sweeney (Spring, TX/Klein) kills to get Smith the win with a score of 15-13. 

Box Score 

• Taylor Gwynne led the team with 84 assists through the ten sets on Friday night. She also added in eight service aces, and nine kills. 

• The last time Smith College beat Middlebury was exactly 28 years ago, to this exact date, September 13th, 1996. 

Up Next

The Pioneers resume competition at the 3rd Annual Bonnie May Tournament tomorrow on Saturday, September 15 at 2 pm against Wesleyan. Later they face Bates College for a 4 pm contest.