The Oswego State women’s volleyball regular season came to an end over the weekend as they turn their attention to the SUNYAC playoffs. 

The Lakers were on the road to Scranton, Pennsylvania for their last regular season match against the 14-16 Marywood Pacers. The first set was close and competitive with four lead changes. The Pacers would apply pressure late in the set to win 25-23 and take a 1-0 lead. Both seniors, McKenna Corbin and Emma Fiorentine helped the Lakers keep it close as Corbin racked up 12 assists and Fiorentine had three kills. The beginning of the second set was similar to the first as both teams were going back and forth. Marywood University would go on a run to take a 20-14 lead, forcing Oswego State head coach Toby Rens to take a timeout.              The Pacers would keep it rolling after the timeout and win the set 25-19 to take a 2-0 lead in the match. Oswego State could not kill the Pacer’s momentum as the Lakers fell early in the third set 17-10. Marywood University would not look back as they took the final set 25-17 and a 3-0 match win. 

Oswego State would outperform Marywood University in kills, points, assists and blocks. Despite doing better in these statistical categories, coach Rens focused on the Lakers’ 22 errors that cost them some big points. 

“The biggest thing we learned from this match is we need to reduce our unforced errors, we made too many serving and hitting wise,” Rens said. “We worked on a few things in practice and will apply that to the Geneseo game.” 

Fiorentine would finish the day with nine kills and junior Grace Taylor would have five blocks on the day. Corbin would end up with 29 assists and seven digs. 

After the regular season concluded on Oct. 29 the Lakers had two days of rest before heading to SUNY Geneseo for their first-round playoff matchup against the 12-11 Knights. The Lakers and the Knights played earlier in the season where Oswego State fell in five close sets. Rens believes his team is prepared to take on the Knights a second time around.

“I was very pleased in the first game against Geneseo as we went down 0-2 but really battled back and made a match out of it,” Rens said. “I think we can pick up where we left off, playing some good volleyball against them and just execute our game plan.” 

To start the match the Lakers built an early lead but that would not be for long as the Knights would build momentum to take a seven-point lead. The Lakers would have 12 errors and drop the first set 25-17. 

Fiorentine, Taylor, Georgia Farry and Cara Simplicio all had three first-set kills. Both teams went on big runs in the second set as the Knights jumped out to an early 10-3 lead but after a timeout, the Lakers would cut the lead to three. Geneseo would not let the Lakers get any closer as they would finish strong and win the set 25-18 to take a 2-0 match lead. The Lakers were able to cut the errors down in half in the second set with six. After an early 5-0 lead by the Oswego State in the third set, the Knights would build momentum back up and claim the third set 25-20 and win the playoff match 3-0. 

The Lakers would finish with 33 kills, 11 from Farry and eight from Fiorentine but would have 24 errors on the night. Corbin would end her night with 29 assists and 14 digs. This loss brings Oswego State’s all-time record to 19-63 against the Knights. Geneseo will take on the one-seed SUNY Cortland Red Dragons in the SUNYAC semifinals. 

Oswego State will finish its season with a record of 17-11 and a conference record of 5-4. The Lakers finished with a 19.3 hitting percentage, 281 aces, 14.3 digs per set, 1.8 blocks per set and finished second in the SUNYAC in kills with 1,111. Some key players were Corbin who had 230 digs and led the SUNYAC in assists with 792. Simplocio led the team in kills with 245,

Farry was behind her with 211 and Fiorentine was in third with 205. The libero, Ally Natale, led the team in digs with 277 and Troy Kaylee was behind her with 244. 

After missing the playoffs two years ago, the Lakers will take the positives out of their 2022 campaign and look to improve for next year.

Photo provided by: Jim Gemza