NORTHAMPTON, Mass. – The No. 18 ranked Wesleyan volleyball team suffered a pair of defeats on Saturday in the Bonnie May Invitational hosted by Smith College. The Cardinals dropped a non-conference match in four sets to Middlebury (27-25, 16-25, 18-25, 14-25) and a tight five-set match to the host Smith (21-25, 27-25, 26-24, 20-25, 13-15). With the defeats, the Cardinals drop to 4-3 on the season.
 
Opening against a NESCAC foe in Middlebury, the Cardinals got held off a late Panther rally in the first set to land a 27-25 win. Wesleyan led by as many as five points in the early going and led 23-20 and 24-22 before having to hold off a set point and rip off a 3-0 run capped by a service ace from Adrienne Nguyen '28 to claim the first set victory.
 
From that point forward, however, Middlebury controlled the match as the Panthers won three straight sets, all of which by at least seven points to take the win.
 
Bianca Gonya '25 went 7-for-7 on her attack attempts in the contest, tying for the team-lead in kills with three other Cardinals. Ali Landa '26 posted 27 assists while Siena Steines '28 went for 10 digs and four kills.
 
The match against Smith was hotly contested and back-and-forth throughout, starting with the first set where neither side got much going offensively, but the Pioneers took advantage of five service aces to take a 25-21 win in the first.
 
Wesleyan bounced back with a much-improved offensive output in the second set, as five Cardinals recorded 2+ kills in the stanza while the team hit .286, but the set still required extra points to decide a winner. The Cardinals held a comfortable 16-9 lead before Smith rallied back to trail 18-17. Smith then took a 23-21 lead and had a match point at 24-23, but the Cardinals held their nerve and won four of the final five points to claim a 27-25 set win.
 
The third set was nearly a mirror image of the second as Wesleyan built a 15-10 lead and held a four-point advantage at 19-15 before the Pioneers tied the score at 24-24 only to see a bad set and attack error swing the set back in favor of Wesleyan for a 26-24 triumph. The Cardinals hit .353 in the third set, compared to .194 for the Pioneers, but still had to hold off a tough Smith team in the end.
 
Suddenly the match took another turn as Wesleyan's attack struggled in the fourth set, generating just six kills on 25 attempts while Smith hit .226 and had 14 kills to take a 25-20 win and send the match into a deciding fifth set.
 
In that decider, Wesleyan went on a 4-0 run to take a 7-4 lead. Smith fought back but Wesleyan still led 12-11, only to see the Pioneers win four of the final five points to take a 15-13 fifth set win.
 
Wesleyan hit .218 for the match and had 16 total blocks as a team. Michelle Jorba '25 was solid throughout, totaling 13 kills with seven total blocks while she hit .367. India Clark '28 impressed with 11 kills on 29 attempts and six solo blocks. Steines narrowly missed a double-double with nine kills and 11 digs. Morgan Mattson '28 finished with seven kills and 10 digs.
 
The Cardinals look to regroup over the week before heading to Maine for the start of NESCAC play as Wesleyan faces Colby on Friday and Bowdoin on Saturday.