For the Hillsdale College volleyball team, perfection is the standard that's come to be expected in Great Midwest Athletic Conference play over the past three seasons.
But never has perfection been as difficult to attain, or been as sweet to achieve, as it was this year.
Hillsdale captured its fourth straight G-MAC tournament title on Saturday with a 22-25, 25-14, 25-15, 25-22 victory, adding the tournament trophy to a fourth consecutive regular season title clinched earlier this season.
The win marked the third straight season Hillsdale has gone undefeated in G-MAC matches, both regular season and conference play, but this year might have been the Chargers' hardest of those three undefeated years.
A rapidly improving G-MAC that saw as many as five teams ranked in the top 25 meant Hillsdale faced its toughest slate of opponents since joining the conference in 2017, and those teams challenged the Chargers in unprecedented ways -- including in Friday night's semifinal, where fourth-seeded Cedarville took Hillsdale to a fifth set and fell 15-13 in that final stanza in Hillsdale's closest match yet in 12 consecutive G-MAC tournament wins.
While the Chargers' finals opponent, the sixth-seeded Dragons, didn't come quite as close as the Yellow Jackets, they gave Hillsdale a battle, scoring five of the final seven points in the first set to put the Chargers in 1-0 hole.
Facing a deficit, the Chargers buckled down defensively, holding Tiffin to a 0.052 hitting percentage over the next two sets to go up 2-1 in the match, then saw off a determined Dragon effort to force a fifth set and clinch the title in a narrow 25-22 fourth-set victory.
When the Chargers needed her, both in the semifinal on Friday and in the final match against the Dragons, 2021 G-MAC Player of the Year Karoline Shelton came through for Hillsdale, finishing with team highs in both kills (19) and digs (18) to tame the Dragons.
Shelton got plenty of support from her teammates, as the Chargers hit .283 for the night and had four players finish with double-digit kills. 2019 G-MAC Player of the Year Allyssa Van Wienen finished with 14 kills, two service aces and three block assists as well for the Chargers and sophomore Megan Kolp chipped in 11 kills.
In her first start of the season, veteran junior Maddie Clark had a sensational night as well, chipping in 10 kills, a solo block and a block assist. She had both the block assist and the kill that scored the final two points for the Chargers in the match.
Senior setter Lindsey Mertz, just two and a half weeks removed from a hand injury that caused her to miss six matches, was excellent in quarterbacking the Charger attack, finishing with 55 assists, 13 digs and three kills, and Maggie DePorre chipped in six kills as well.
Defensively, freshman libero Alli Wiese finished with 18 digs to tie Shelton for the Charger lead, sophomore Audrey Riley chipped in 12 digs, and senior Madie Schider added nine.
The win concludes a 16-1 spring campaign full of growth and adversity for the Chargers. From the cancellation of the scheduled season in the fall and the 2020 NCAA Division II tournament, to the injury to Mertz, and seeing a 50-match home winning streak snapped earlier in the season, the Chargers faced plenty of obstacles that could have derailed their quest for a G-MAC four-peat, but overcame them all in the end.
Now, Hillsdale is exploring the possibility of competing in a national invitational tournament hosted by the AVCA in mid-April, and also looking toward the fall, where the Chargers will go for a fifth-straight G-MAC crown and potentially, a deep NCAA Tournament run as well, with all four seniors taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility created by Covid-19 and returning for one more run at a national title.
Photo by Anthony Lupi