(Warwick, RI) A grueling 2-day, 5-match tournament was a success for the Tigers. In all, 17 sets and 696 points were played with the Tigers outscoring their opponents 380-316 across the 5 matches. All the hard work at CCRI paid off for the Tiger Volleyball team with a silver bracket 1st place finish, and more importantly the team gained a wealth of much needed non-region experince against tough competition.

Results:
Saturday Pool Play:
Delaware Tech L 3-1 (17-25, 25-23, 18-25, 17-25)
CCRI L 3-0 (11-25, 22-25, 22-25)

Sunday Pool Play:
Bunker Hill W 3-0 (25-10, 25-16, 25-19)

Sunday Silver Bracket Semifinal:
North Essex W 3-0 (25-4, 25-6, 25-11)

Sunday Silver Bracket Championship:
New Hampshire Tech W 3-1 (25-19, 25-22, 23-25, 25-11)

On Saturday, in the first day of pool play, the Tigers faced a tough  Delaware Tech team, and lost 3-1. Despite struggling to put the ball away, the Tigers hung tough and made a contest of every set. Out of 111 kill attempts, the Tigers put away only 19 kills, and made 20 hitting errors. The defensive handling of the Delaware Tech attacks kept FIT alive in the match. Sophomore Hannah Edwards recorded 34 digs while making only 5 dig errors.  "We didn't attack the way we are capable of. It was the first match of the tournament, and only our second match of the season. Had we been more aggressive from the start, we may have seen a different result." - Head Coach Keith Heron

In the second match of the day, the Tigers played tournament host, and annual powerhouse CCRI. Despite loosing in 3 sets, the Tigers took a big step forward. After getting beaten badly in the first set, the Tigers gave CCRI a good run in  sets 2 and 3, but came up short.   The offensive attack stepped up the pace and registered 24 kills, 23 of which were assisted.  The offense was led by sophomore Vanessa Bennish who recorded 14 kills. Leading the offense in assits were co-captains Arpi Dayian (13) and Cassandra Burdick (10)  Also impressive for FIT was out of 54 team serves, only 5 service errors were made. Leading the defense was sophomore Christina Wong with 26 digs of the hard-hitting CCRI attack and 16 serve recieves with only 1 error.  "I was impressed with how quickly the team applied what we had been working on in practice all week and how quickly we made adjustments to new challenges in the match." - Head Coach Keith Heron

Deapite loosing both matches on the day, the team left feeling good about themselves and feeling prepared for the following day's competitions.

On Sunday, the Tigers came out sharp putting away Bunker Hill and North Essex in dominating fashion. Across the two matches, the Tigers serving was overpowering with the team recording an astonishing 29 aces, led by freshman co-captain Arpi Dayian with 11 aces.

The final match, for the silver bracket championship, would not be that easy as  the Tigers were opposed by a solid New Hampshire Tech squad. "This was a well rounded victory. We had it all working for us, serving, setting, attacking and defending." said Head Coach Keith Heron. Of 91 serves, only 2 errors were made for a 97.8 serve percentage with 11 aces in the match. Leading the attack with 15 of FIT's 41 kills was sophomore Vanessa Bennish, and turning in 24 assists was freshman Arpi Dayian who also contributed 5 of the Tigers 10 aces. Sophomore middle clocker Jillian Staebler also stepped up big in the match with 7 kills, 8 digs and 2 blocks.

A key moment in the pivotal match was when Sophomore Meghan Chilson came in to provide a spark off the bench. Behind Chilson's serves, FIT reeled off 5 straight points and extended their lead to 11 points (21-10), a surge that would propel the team to victory. NHTI struggled to handle Chilson's seves (2 aces) and Meghan also made 3 digs and few nice sets during the rally.  There was no looking back from that point for the Tigers who used that momteum to close the set 25-11 and the match, 3 sets to 1 winning the silver bracket championship!

Next up for the Tigers is a match at Bronx CC at 7pm on Thursday 9/22
Go Tigers!