The Brandeis women's volleyball team (11-1) continued its September warm-ups in preparation for the UAA season with another impressive week that included five wins, four of which were shutouts. The Judges showed just how dominating they can be during a perfect four-game stretch at the Brandeis Invitational on Friday and Saturday. Over the course of four matches against Bridgewater State College, Hunter College, McDaniel College and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Brandeis won a combined 12 games while losing none.

Brandeis' match-up with Bridgewater (7-4) on Friday afternoon was its toughest of the weekend, but the Bears were still no match for the Judges as Head Coach Sheryl Sousa's crew cruised to an easy 30-16, 30-10, 30-28 victory.

Tiffany Wos '06 had a strong game against the Bears, recording seven kills with just one error in 13 attacks. She led the team with a .462 percentage. Wos also tied for the team high with nine digs. Co-Captain Marni Kutok '04 led the team with 11 kills as well as four service aces and nine digs, and Jen Lobban '05 added eight kills, five digs and three service aces.

The Judges played Hunter College (3-8) that same night and emerged with a similarly satisfactory result. The Hawks fell 30-18, 30-12, 30-12 due to more strong performances from Lobban, who led the way with 10 digs, six kills and two services aces, and Kutok, who had 10 kills, seven digs and three service aces.

Saturday saw the Judges again brush aside the competition, as they had the previous day, first dispatching McDaniel 30-19, 30-26, 30-25 before they pummeled the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy 30-20, 30-15, 30-22, to close out the weekend of dominance.

The Green Terror (4-11) gave the Judges their toughest match of the Invitational, but Brandeis' momentum could not be broken, which enabled the tournament hosts to pull out each game.

Brandeis trailed 17-13 in what would be the final game of the match before going on an 8-3 run to retake the lead before eventually finishing off the Terror with a vicious kill on game point.

Kutok had the most single-game kills in the Invitational with 15, Becca Segal '05 had nine kills and Wos had a tournament-high 18 digs in the game. Shannon Eagan '05 continued to show expertise at setter with 28 assists. The junior also contributed four service aces.

Although the final match of the Invitational against the Marines (5-6) was fairly close on paper, the underdogs never had a lead against the Judges in any of the three games. Brandeis also finished the final point of the final game of the final match with another strong kill, making a strong statement about the high level of their play over the past week. Kutok, Lobban and Wos each had 10 kills in the match.

The only match of the week that proved a real challenge to the Judges was a 3-2 win over Smith College (3-2) on Thursday at Gosman. The 30-28, 30-23, 34-36, 26-30, 15-11 marathon was by far the Judges' closest contest of the season, but their ability to refocus after losing two games showed a great deal about the team's toughness.

The Judges lost to Smith 3-0 on the road last season and did not wish to repeat that defeat, so with aggressive play, Brandeis jumped out to a 2-0 lead. That's not to say that Smith made it easy to take a lead, as the Pioneers never allowed the Judges to gain more than a five-point advantage until Brandeis ran away with the second game on a 7-3 run.

Given that the Judges had only lost the third game of a match once the entire season, there seemed little reason to worry when Brandeis fell behind 14-10 in the third game. But when that deficit increased to 20-12, the situation did not look promising for Brandeis. But the Judges battled and refused to simply write off the third game. Instead, Brandeis battled back to tie the game at 27. The two teams then traded points back and forth until the score stood at 34-34.

Each team had numerous game points, but neither could convert. Then the Pioneers had a kill to take a 35-34 lead. On the following point, Smith's third game point, there was a long exchange that ended abruptly when a Brandeis player was ruled to have made contact with the net. That gave Smith the third game as well as considerable momentum. With that win, the Pioneers' energy level seemed to increase as time went on, while the Judges seemed to tire.

"We had some trouble with our serve-receive and our energy level just sank in the middle of the game," Co-captain Isabel de Koninck '04 said. "We were able to come back, but it was just too little too late."

Before the fourth game, Coach Sheryl Sousa told the Judges to "try and stay loose and be aggressive."

"But sometimes," a forgiving Sousa remarked, "it just doesn't happen."

For Brandeis, it didn't happen in the fourth game, as the Judges quickly fell behind 18-8. Again, the Judges made a strong comeback, but were never able to tie the score and eventually fell 30-26.

During the decisive fifth game, the Judges turned back the clock and managed to regain the energy they had thrived on during the first two games. After matching Smith point for point, Brandeis took control to go up 9-7 en route to winning 15-11. Segal finished the match with 23 kills, while Kutok had 22 kills and 33 digs. Eagan chipped in with a career-high 50 assists. Lobban came up huge with 13 kills and 15 digs.

After a relatively easy first few weeks of play, the tightly-contested Smith match was Brandeis' first real test since the Springfield Invitational on Sept. 6.

"We knew this game would be our toughest of the week and we went in really aggressively," de Koninck said. "We knew our record looked good, but it didn't mean anything until we beat a better team."

This week the Judges face Eastern Nazarene College at home and Emmanuel College on the road, two games which will mark the conclusion of the easier non-conference schedule. On Oct. 3-4, the Judges will travel to St. Louis for the UAA round-robin where they will face three teams ranked in the nation's top-25 at the Division III level.

"The UAA is a different level of competition," Sousa said. "We've demonstrated that we can play regionally, and now we have to see what we can do nationally. I'm excited for UAAs. I'm excited for us to go up against that level of competition and see how we'll respond. I think the team is looking forward to playing those types of (better) teams," she said.

Lobban is certainly enthused as well.

"I think we're prepared to play," she said. "We know how to stay composed if we're down a few points. We're playing together as a team and we're playing as well as we can.