Middlebury had a strong bounce-back performance following its first loss of the season last night, taking all three sets from Connecticut College (4-7, 1-6)  in a road NESCAC contest on Saturday. The Panthers (15-1, 5-1) continue conference play on Friday, heading to Bowdoin for a 7:30 p.m. start.

The opening set was close in the early going, with the teams producing four ties with the score only being 6-6. The Panthers began to pull away with a 5-0 run, with Lucy Ambach and Jane Nelson each knocking down kills for a 10-6 lead. Middlebury held its biggest advantage at 24-14 thanks to a block from the tandem of Ambach and Gabbie O'Toole. A service error by the Camels gave the visitors a 25-17 win.

In the middle frame, the Panthers raced out to a 4-0 edge with Ambach notching a pair of service aces. The Camels hung around and closed to within one (16-15), but five-straight points by Middlebury got them back on track. O'Toole sparked the burst with two aces. Connecticut College made a late push to get within 23-20, only to have Nelson record a kill and an attack error to put the visitors up 2-0 with the 25-20 victory.

The Panthers broke open a 10-10 tie in the third set, reeling off an 8-0 run. Corley Doyle contributed three kills in that span, with Nelson delivering a pair of aces. The hosts never got any closer than six points after that with a kill by Wise and a ball-handling error making the final 25-17.

Wise led all players with 12 kills and Doyle added 11 kills and three blocking assists. O'Toole handed out 32 assists, while the trio of Wise, Nelson and Kelly Ferrero had 15 digs apiece.

For the Camels, Avery Light had nine kills, Natasha Shrivastava had 12 assists and Julia Daily posted 14 digs.