It was looking like a nightmare of a season opener for women’s volleyball.
The Tigers had dropped the first two sets to visiting Franklin in front of a capacity crowd at Neal Fieldhouse. But for a team that went 27-11 last season, DePauw wasn’t about to back down on their home court.
“Even when we are down, we have the mentality that when we play together we will win,” said senior outside hitter Lauren Falotico. “After we lost the first two sets... (we) made a decision that we were going to take Franklin to five sets and win the match.”
And that’s just what they did.
Led by Falotico’s 21 kills, senior defensive specialist Keely McGrath’s 14 digs and freshman middle hitter Quinci Miller’s six blocks, DePauw won the next three matches by scores of 25-12, 25-12 and 15-9 and sent loyal Tigers fans home happy.
For a team with such talent, it’s hard to say what was giving them trouble early on.
“I think maybe early in the game, because of the big crowd, we were a little more tight, a little more timid,” said head coach Deb Zellers. “It took us a while to get into the flow of the game. Our confidence and our teamwork weren’t there initially.”
Poor serving also hurt the Tigers as well throughout the first two sets.
“Every time we seemed to find a little bit of a rally or make a great play, we’d miss a serve,” said Zellers. “We really wanted to focus on just being confident in our serving… It was just a confidence factor for us.
The last time the two teams met was in 2013, when DePauw also hosted the Grizzlies. That year, the Tigers easily handled Franklin, beating them in three sets, something the team hopes to do a lot of this season after seeing what they’re capable of when their backs are against the wall.
“We didn’t have a lot of energy in the first two sets (against Franklin),” said Miller. “Once we realized that we needed to pick up our intensity, it changed our game and we were able to make amazing plays.”
The team hopes to carry that momentum into this weekend, where they’ll be playing away at Ohio Northern, and then at Bluffton for the Sommer Center Spectacular.
“This season we have very high expectations. We are stronger, more focused and ready to meet our goals,” said McGrath. “The fact that we were going into that third game that we were going to win says a lot about where this t
