The volleyball team swept a pair of home matches on Saturday, pulling out a 3-2 victory over Amherst and also defeating Trinity by a 3-1 score to improve to 13-4 on the season. Although the matches were against NESCAC teams, they are considered nonconference matches and so do not count in the NESCAC standings. Wesleyan returns to NESCAC play this week, as Connecticut College comes to town on Wednesday before the Cardinals head to Hartford for a Friday night rematch with Trinity.

In 2007, Amherst came to Middletown for the Wesleyan Invitational with an 11-0 record but fell to the Cardinals 3-2. This year, the Lord Jeffs rode in with a 12-1 overall record, with the lone loss having come at Wellesley. Wesleyan took the first set, 25-21, but Amherst answered with a 25-23 triumph to even the match. The Cardinals won the third set by an identical score, but the Jeffs rolled to a 25-17 victory in the fourth to tie it at 2-2. However, Amherst could not sustain the momentum, as the Cardinals took the fifth set 15-10 to send the Lord Jeffs tumbling from the ranks of the bourgeois. Wesleyan will face the Lord Jeffs again in its regular-season finale. The match will be played in Middletown, where Wesleyan is 6-1 this season.

The Cardinals had a few hours to rest before taking on Trinity in the game’s final match. The Bantams had eked out a 3-2 victory over the Lord Jeffs earlier in the day but were unable to duplicate the feat against Wesleyan, which earned a hard-fought 3-1 win. The Cardinals won the first set 25-23, but Trinity took the second 29-27—the first time in three matches Wesleyan dropped a set against Trinity. The Cardinals pulled out another 25-23 win in the third set and took the fourth 25-20 to ice their 17th win in their last 18 matches against the Bantams.

Outside hitter Lisa Drennan ’09, who began the week ranked second nationally with 4.90 kills per set, racked up 40 in the two matches to go along with 17 against Western Connecticut for an average of 4.38. Setter Ellie Healy ’10 added 94 assists over the day’s nine sets to raise her NESCAC-leading average to 10.10 per set; Healy was later named NESCAC Co-Player of the Week. On the defensive side, libero Ruby Hernandez ’11 amassed 32 digs in the two matches. The Cardinals also continued to receive key contributions from freshmen, as hitters Casey Reed ’12 and Alissa Santucci ’12 combined for 39 kills on the day.

Next up for the Cardinals is a Wednesday night match against Conn. College, which has won four of its last five matches against the Cardinals after losing 16 in a row against Wesleyan. Wesleyan went 1-2 against the Camels in 2007, including a 3-0 first-round defeat in the NESCAC Championship that ended the Cardinals’ season. However, Wesleyan has won six of its last seven home matches against its in-state foe (excluding a 2001 match forfeited to the Cardinals). On Friday, the Cardinals will travel to Trinity for a rematch of Saturday’s match; Wesleyan is 9-2 against the Bantams in Hartford since 1990. A pair of wins would give the Cardinals, who are currently tied for fifth in the conference with Middlebury, a 4-1 record in NESCAC play at the midway point of the conference schedule. Just one match currently separates the top six teams in the standings, so a 2-0 week would make the Cardinals serious contenders for the top overall seed. However, if this season has shown anything so far, it is that any team is capable of beating any other on a given day, so the Cardinals will need to bring their “A” game if they hope to sweep the matches.