The Mules were busy this week, playing three tough volleyball games. They played Wednesday, Sept. 16 against Bowdoin College, Friday, Sept. 18 against Amherst College and Saturday, Sept. 19 against Trinity College. Although the team lost the three games, senior Megan Conroy feels good about the week. "We're very happy with the way we played against Trinity and Amherst. They are really strong teams in our conference, and it was definitely a challenging way to start off the season. We did really well considering some injury problems," Conroy said.

Ahhh those injuries... Over the past week, Colby suffered two concussions, one by Maggie Taylor '13 and the other by Clare Reich '11. When asked what they need to improve on, Head Coach Candice Parent said, "We need to get healthy." Adding to the injured list, Colby's setter Emily Ten Eyck '13 re-injured her thumb on Saturday. To add to its distress, the team does not have a backup setter, so first-year Emily Varni, regularly an outside hitter, stepped up to the challenge. Varni never before played setter in her life. "She really showed great promise and poise," Parent said, "In my 15 years of coaching, I have never been more proud of a team after a loss than this team. They really did a great job of not getting outwardly frazzled and pulled together to really step up their game."

"Even though we lost, we were able to take a set from each team. I think we will see more success in the future," Conroy said about the week. On Wednesday, the Mules played strong up until the third set, with the score tied at 18. Then the Mules lost seven straight points, to lose the set 18-25. After that, the Mules could not regain their composure, lost the fourth set, and then gave up another run (1-6) in the fifth game (which is played to 15 points). "We will need to really continue to work on being able to serve receive more consistently so that we are not giving up so many easy points," Parent said. On Wednesday, Colby gave up 19 aces.

Friday night's loss to Amherst was a challenging game because Amherst has a very strong offensive. In addition, Parent said, "I was really disappointed with our level of intensity for this match, especially in the beginning." However, she was impressed with how some of the first-years played as Taylor and Varni both played strong offensive games. Saturday, like the Mules expected, was a battle against Trinity because both teams are very strong defensively. The Mules put up a great fight, but in the end fell 25-16, 25-23, 24-26, 25-21 to the Trinity Bantams.

Next up for the Mules is a home game vs. University of New England on Wednesday at 6 p.m. On Friday they will play two games, one against Vassar College and one against either Springfield College or Wesleyan University, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Invitational.