The Cluster Roundup

Volleyball

The past few weeks have not been pleasant for the volleyball team who has experienced a six game losing streak since early October.

The Bears dropped their last game against Furman in four sets (23-25, 25-23, 13-25, 15-25). Coach Derek Schroeder said the team came out strong in the beginning but was unable to maintain dominance throughout the rest of the match.

"We came out and really competed tonight early," Schroeder said. "We made some plans to win in set two. I'm disappointed we couldn't maintain it through sets three and four."

The last win for the team was against Savannah State on Oct. 4, which may spell some fortunate news for ending this unfortunate slide since Savannah State will be their next match Oct. 25.

 

Men’s Soccer

This season has been nothing but hard fought battles for the Men’s team, as evidenced by their 5-7-4 overall record.

Their last game against East Tennessee State University ended with a loss in overtime.

At this point, the Men’s team is 3-4-2 in conference play. With the Southern Conference Championships coming up next month, they have just one more opportunity to bolster their conference record in preparation.

 

Women’s Soccer

It’s been a difficult past two weeks for the Women’s soccer team. Their promising season was cut short by a streak of losses that now puts their record at 9-9-1.

The last five games in the season have either ended in a loss or a tie, most recently with Virginia Military Institute which ended 1-0.

A VMI goal in the first half was all it took to decide the rest of the game as Mercer was held for the remaining time.

"Obviously, this is not the way we wanted to end regular season,”said Head Coach Tony Economopoulos. “We came out with a lot of heart and desire and created many chances. Unfortunately we couldn't score which has been our Achilles heel all season. We left game up to own goal and that was the difference in the match. A great thing about the Southern Conference is every team gets into the tournament. So we look forward to our match Wednesday with The Citadel.”

 

Women’s Tennis

For the first time in the program’s history, the team was able to qualify three players for the main draw of the ITA regionals.

Marie Mottet defeated the top seeded player in the tournament in three sets, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

At this time, information has not been updated about the outcome of the invitational, but the Cluster site will be updated as more information comes in.

 

Men’s Golf

The Men’s golf team managed to place 4th/11 in the APSU Intercollegiate Invitational Oct. 16 - 17.

Players Spencer Ball and Stanton Schorr led the team with Ball tying for fourth in the tournament and Schorr tying for 19th. Jerry Ren finished 11th as one of Mercer’s two individual players in the tournament.

"We played well overall today as we took fourth place here at Greystone Golf Club," said head coach Kirk Kayden. "We're still looking for the entire group to excel over a full round, but I'm confident that will come as we continue to progress.”

 

Softball

Mercer Softball closed out their fall pre-season with a perfect record. This is not a new phenomenon for them, they finished last year’s fall season with a perfect record as well.

Not only did the team finish the season with zero losses, their last game was also finished with a perfect game, 10-0.

The team usually plays these exhibition games to get the team ready for the spring season during which they play major SoCon competition. The team will also play two games against Georgia this year.