The Judges continued their season this week with two games against non-University Athletic Association rivals Wellesley College and the University of Massachusetts-Boston. With the two losses that resulted from these matches, the Judges are now 11–16 overall for the season. Looking ahead, the Judges will play at the UAA tournament on Friday at the University of Rochester, where they will take on UAA rivals Emory University and Carnegie Mellon University. Brandeis is currently 0–7 in the UAA.


Judges 0, UMB 3

On Saturday, the Judges took on the UMass Boston Beacons at home for their senior game, honoring their nine seniors before the start of the game. The team fell, losing all three sets with scores of 25–15, 36–34 and 25–19, according to the Brandeis Athletics website. This brought the Judges down to 11–16 for the season as the Beacons’ score increased  to 17–8. In the first set, the Beacons started right away with a raging lead. In fact, they never trailed once in this set: The team raced ahead to a 16–6 lead and then sped to the first set a 25–15 win. The second set of this match turned out to be very long — the longest for the Judges this season. After starting out ahead with a score of 15–10, the Beacons pressed forward. Ultimately, the lead switched back and forth for quite a while until UMB ended with a hard-fought 36–34 victory over the Judges. In the third set, the Beacons claimed a lead early on, but the Judges were able to tie the score several times until the score was tied at nine. Afterwards, UMB made an 8–3 run to bring the score to 17–12, a lead that the Beacons would maintain throughout the set and match when they were victorious, 25–19.

During this match, Emma Bartlett ’20 led the team with nine kills, followed close behind by Shea Decker-Jacoby ’19 with eight. Marissa Borgert ’21 led the team in assists, with 16, followed by Marlee Nork ’19 with 10. In terms of defense, Kaitlyn Oh ’22 led with seven digs, and Grace Krumpack ’19 and Decker-Jacoby each contributed five. Overall, though, seven players contributed multiple digs for the team.


Judges 0, Wellesley 3

On Thursday, the Judges’ overall record fell to 11–15 when they lost to Wellesley College with set scores of 25–13, 25–23 and 25–15, according to the Brandeis Athletics website. This match brought Wellesley to 19–5 for the season. In the first set, the teams began with a tie at a score of nine. However, the Blue went on a 10–2 run that resulted in Wellesley being ahead with a score of  19–11. The Blue maintained that lead until they swept the set with a score of 25–13. Brandeis had three straight errors that led to the victory for the Blue. 

In the second set, the Judges started strong with a 15–9 lead. However, the Blue fought back and achieved a tie with a score of 18. Although the Judges scored three more points to record an overall score of 21–18, the Blue came through and tied the score at 21 and then 23. A kill for the Blue and an error from the Judges led to Wellesley winning the match 23–23. In the third set, the Blue trailed only for a small amount of time before jumping to an 11–4 lead which they maintained until they won the set and match with a score of 25–15.


Bartlett led with eight kills and Decker-Jacoby and Borgert followed with seven kills each. Borgert and Nork contributed 25 assists total and Oh helped the team with 16 digs.