CCNY Women’s Volleyball drops opener to Yeshiva

BY Jeff Weisinger

Senior Sports Editor

 New year, newer – relatively younger – team, still the same old story.CCNY’s women’s volleyball team looked nothing like the fifth-ranked preseason team they were in their 3-1 loss (25-15, 20-25, 17-25, 15-25) against Yeshiva University Tuesday night at the Nat Holman Gymnasium.“It was a tough loss,” CCNY head coach Dalliana Toussaint said afterwards. “We won the first set and we just kind of gave up after that.”CCNY opened the game very strong, going on a 16-7 run after Yeshiva tied the game at seven apiece to win 25-15.“I feel like we felt confident on the first one and Yeshiva fought back and either we couldn’t handle it or we were just taken off guard,” Toussaint explained.It went all downhill from there as the Maccabees ripped through the second and third sets, taking advantage of every City error on the night, winning 25-20 and 25-17, respectively.“I feel like it might have gotten to our heads that we could beat them, so it kind of brought us down a little bit, but we tried our best to keep up,” freshman Cassidy Iannariello said. She had a pair of kills and a game-high 23 assists on the night.The second and third sets continue to be an issue for CCNY dating back to last season as well, the first under Toussaint.“Instead of playing, we were watching,” junior Vera Quispe said about the final three sets.CCNY had no momentum whatsoever after winning the first set, allowing Yeshiva to take the opening lead in the next three sets.With no seniors on the team this year and just three juniors to take the veteran roles, a struggling start and rough times early on was expected by Toussaint along with her older players.“It was expected because this team is pretty new,” Quispe explained. “We were happy we won the first set, but we knew that we would stumble onto a couple of problems. But we learned and hopefully we will fix it.”Toussaint agreed: “It will be a slow start, but it will end well.”