On Wednesday, October 28th, the Eleanor Roosevelt Raiders girls’ varsity volleyball team fell to the Pallotti Panthers in a hard fought 5 set match by a score of (18-25, 25-23, 20-25, 25-23, 8-15) . The game happened to be the team’s final regular season game before playoffs, and also was their senior night. Although the team has only one senior, Serena Hochmuth, they all felt it would of been “nice to win the game since we put in a lot of effort,” said sophomore setter Georgia Walters.

The team started off the first set slow and allowed  the Panthers to get an early lead. After bringing the score close several times, the Raiders were unable to stave off the Panthers offense and dropped the first set 18-25.

The second set, however, was very evenly contested throughout its entirety. The Raiders blocked several shots at the net and had good passes to outscore the Panthers and win the set 25-23.

In the third set, the Raiders began serving first and jumped out to an early 7-2 lead, forcing Pallotti to call a timeout so they could regroup. After it seemed like the Raiders had this set under control, the Panthers went on a run of their own. Thanks to quality serves and passing, they were able to come back and win the third set 20-25.

In the fourth set, it seemed like Pallotti had the game under control and was going to come out easily with the victory. But the Raiders would not go down without a fight. A series of missed serves by the Panthers, and good finishing by the Raiders, allowed them to come back and go on a run from five points down to eventually taking the set 25-23.

In the deciding 5th set, the Raiders made a few mistakes and did not have enough left to fight off the Panthers and eventually dropped the final set 8-15.

Sophomore Juliet Jack, a member of the JV team, said the game was “very intense” to watch.

Walters also added that “this was probably the toughest competition they played so far” this season.

Sophomore Nia Scott thought “the team played pretty well altogether” but that they need to improve on their “communication and not allowing the other team to take away our momentum.” for playoffs starting next week.

Hopefully the team can continue to play hard like this as they begin their postseason run.