Pace University’s women’s volleyball team began this season with an 0-6 record, which was a disappointing start after last year’s team had the program’s best season since 2000.

The Setters have bounced back a bit since, and now have four impressive victories under their belt. Nevertheless, the slow start to the year still begs the question: How did a team that started the year ranked fifth in the NE-10 conference suffer six straight losses to begin the season?

“We opened up 2017 playing some very strong competition,” says eighth-year head coach Karrin Moore. “There were two top 25 teams, as well as another two that qualified for their NCAA regional tournament in 2016 we had to face.”

Coach Moore also attributed the injury bug biting the team as one of the reasons for the rough start.

“We actually returned a majority of our roster from 2016, but we have been battling some injuries since the start of the season,” Moore said.

Playing against elite competition and attempting to overcome injuries was certainly difficult. The team playing its first four games in unfamiliar territory in Tampa and Lakewood, FL., could not have made it much better.

Moore says she and the team took the early losses as a sign and an opportunity to improve.

“While more wins would be nice, the team has learned a ton facing tougher competition to start the year,” she said. “We are working our hardest now on minimizing our unforced errors we had early in the season.”

The players and coaches had an option to either feel sorry for themselves or bounce back and rally against adversity. They chose to do the latter.

Look no further than the team’s 3-0 upset victory against Molloy College on Sep. 22, one of only two losses Molloy has suffered all season, as an example of the Setters recuperating and getting its season back on track.

“Beating Molloy was a big win for us this year, it showed what we are capable of doing,” Moore said.

Coming into the game, Moore says the team was not focused on how big of an upset a win would be. They also did not come in necessarily expecting to win.

Rather, they simply took their common game day approach, which is executing the game plan and letting the game play out.

“We don’t go into every game expecting to win,” Moore said. “We go in expecting to work hard and do the right things. And when we do, the wins follow.”
The victory against Molloy, which showed glimpses of why the Setters were so successful in 2016, confirmed they can hang with anyone as long as they carry out the game plan properly and avoid mistakes.

Despite the relatively recent success, it could still be quite discouraging to lose as many games (nine) in a 13-game span as the previous year’s team did all last season. However, Moore still has great confidence in the team.

“The team has been working hard day in and day out,” she said. “With a majority of the season ahead of us, I have every confidence in them that we will have a solid season.”