The women's volleyball squad arrived at the University of Chicago on Sept. 29, 2012 hoping to make a profound statement.

After a convincing 3-1 home victory against Mount Ida College on September 22, the Judges improved to a 14-4 record and looked to shine in its first University Athletic Association tournament of the season.

Yet, just two days later, Brandeis reverted to old trends. The squad dropped all three matches, falling to 14-7 and a winless start in conference play.

From there, the team could not regain that momentous start to the season and limped to a .500 mark in its last 14 games.

However, the Judges did earn their first conference victory since 2010 with a 3-1 defeat of New York University and also went all the way to the finals of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships against Western New England College.

The goal, then, for Brandeis this season is to build off of that success in conference play.

"Our general outlook is to take the season one game at a time, and our main goal is to make it to post-season," said middle blocker Carly Gutner-Davis '15.

"We had a great year last year, but we want to take it even farther this year. We have a strong team and a strong foundation; we have players with more experience and a team that works well as a unit."

The Judges, however, graduated several key players including four-year defensive specialist Susan Sun '13 as well as middle blocker Becca Fischer '13 and outside hitter Lauren Berens '13, two consistent leaders for the team in kills.
While their contributions to the squad will certainly be missed, Brandeis does have experience on its side, featuring two seniors and five juniors.

Setter Yael Einhorn '14 and outside hitter Si-Si Hensley '14 look to end their careers on a high note and provide crucial veteran leadership. Einhorn recorded a team-leading 1,154 assists last season while Hensley ranked second on the team with 252 kills and 348 digs.

Head coach Michelle Kim recognizes that, given its returning players, the team looks to be even stronger this season.
"Our team worked very hard last spring semester on improving their overall fitness, and improving on our passing and defense," she said. "So far this preseason it has been great to see the hard work that our players have put in is paying off. We also worked on our mental game and that has improved as well, and we would like to see even more improvements in that area."

The squad also returns a few critical players to spark the offense, including outside hitter Liz Hood '15 who led the team last season with an impressive 464 kills. Middle blockers Maddie Engeler '16, who recorded 150 kills in just her first year on the squad, and Gutner-Davis, will look to replace Fischer at the front of the net. Libero Elsie Bernaiche '15 will also look to build off of her 2012 team-leading mark of 601 digs.
Amaris Brown '16 also made quite the impact in her rookie season with 185 digs and will most likely succeed Sun as the Judges' defensive specialist.

Brandeis looks to face many familiar opponents this season, including the always-imposing UAA teams. With an experienced core and strong team cohesion, the team looks to improve greatly at its two UAA round-robin invitationals.

"Our conference is very strong," said Kim. "Every player needs to continue to train hard at the gym to improve their game. We are improving each day and no matter which opponent we are facing, we just need to play at a consistently high level. In conference play we will be seeing bigger blockers, so our hitters will need to be smarter with their hits to maximize our scoring potential, and we have been working on that this pre-season. We have some good talent on this team, and it would be great to see our team finish out the season having improved from where we started out."

"We bonded a lot in the spring and the two newcomers fit in well with our extremely cohesive team," added Gutner-Davis. "We plan on going in to every game with high energy, a lot of communication, and a positive attitude. We focus first on our side of the court. We can't control what other teams do, but we can control our level of play, and I think once we do that, we will be successful."

The squad will begin its season this Friday at the Western Connecticut State University Invitational, squaring off against Worcester State University at 7 p.m.