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The Judges entered the season with questions about depth and over the weekend, left Amherst still dealing with these questions.

Playing without injured setter Abby Blasco ’11, recuperating after aggravating her hamstring injury against Tufts, the Judges struggled to adjust, sandwiching a 3-1 victory over Westfield State with 1-3 losses to host Amherst.

“That definitely changes up our line-up.” Coach Michelle Kim explained,

“Vi [Ruggiero ‘09] hasn’t set in awhile so it’s an uncomfortable situation for Vi but you know, no matter who’s setting, we still have to take care of the ball.”

“I think we played well Friday night,” Coach Kim said.

“Effort and you know, just trying to do different things with different line ups and stuff, I thought Friday was good. Saturday was a little bit harder, just some frustration built in, you know things not going our way…I think we just need to learn to cope with some of our frustrations and do a better job with that.”

Brandeis climbed back from a five point deficit to take a 16-15 in the opening set against Amherst but the Lord Jeffs hung on for a 23-25 victory.

The Judges rebounded using a 10-4 run to claim the second set 25-19.

However Amherst took the third set 17-25 and eked out the 23-25 win in the last set.

Piera Carfagno ’10 led a balanced attack with 13 kills while Nicole Smith ’11 had 11 kills for the match along with six blocks. Bridget McAllister ’10 had a double-double with 10 kills and 15 digs. Paige Blasco ’11 led the defense with 25 digs.

Violette Ruggiero ’09 had 41 assists in her first game as a setter in two years.

Westfield State proved to be a good salve for the Judges in the tournament, responding with a 25-8 pounding in the first set.

After narrowly losing the second set, Brandeis followed with 25-15 and 25-16 wins to snap their two game losing streak.

However after taking the first set from Middlebury 25-20, the Judges lost three straight sets 19-25, 19-25, 23-25.

Against Westfield State, Paige Blasco had 17 kills leading the offense. Lorraine Wingenbach and Nikki Smith each had 12 kills; Wingenbach also had 13 digs.

Libero Lauren Polinsky ’10 had a team high 17 digs. Blasco had 15 digs in the losing effort against Middlebury while Carfagno lead the offense with 13 kills.

Brandeis faces a tough challenge this weekend as they start their conference play in Pittsburgh, taking on number nationally ranked Emory followed by NYU and Chicago and they’ll be doing it without Abby Blasco who has been ruled out of the upcoming contests.

“This is when you step up, this is when you shine.” Coach Kim stated, “so let’s see what our players can do.”