From an undefeated Commonwealth Coast Conference season to a .500 record, women’s volleyball has struggled to meet their season expectations.

The team started the season defending the number two spot in the CCC. Even though they’ve only moved down to third, they’re riding behind an unexpected competitor — Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Last year, Wentworth sat toward the middle of the conference at number four with a 6-3 record. As of Sunday, they remained undefeated atop last year’s CCC Championship playing teams, Endicott College and RWU. Outside of conference play, Wentworth is comfortably at .905 while most teams are around .500 or below.

However, Wentworth’s success has no correlation to RWU’s down season. According to head coach Danielle Soubliere, buying into a collective team mindset has not come as easily as it has in the past.

“Some of the games were definitely more of a battle and it showed,” Soubliere said.

In the past, starting the season with more challenging games has paid off for the Hawks. This year, some of the losses took a toll on the players. According to Soubliere, the team and her had high expectations for the season that they weren’t meeting in the first half.

To the coaching staff, the focus was and still is their performance within the conference.

“Out of conference games are still important,” Soubliere said. “But we need to focus on correcting our errors in conference.”

Soubliere noticed a trend with her players that once they make one error, they continue to get in their heads instead of brushing it off. Against Endicott last week, however, things changed.

The Hawks started to work together, the way they were trying to in the beginning of the season. After suffering tough losses in the beginning of the season, the team started playing more aggressive which, according to Soubliere, is important going into their game against Curry College. They need to continue to make smart plays and perform consistently throughout each match.

“They started working together and having each other’s backs,” Soubliere said. “They’re doing their jobs and they saw how it paid off.”