Last year, the Mustangs went through the wringer. Friday, they ran through a human tunnel.
After passing under the outstretched arms of 40 or more classmates, sophomore Madi Fay acknowledge that the night's 3-1 home win over No. 18 Vanguard was a little sweeter because of what she'd been through last year and who she'd been through it with.
The Mustangs clinched at least a share of the program's first-ever Golden State Athletic Conference title Friday, and they did it with much the same core as 2017, when TMU won all of 11 matches and nearly missed the conference tournament.
"For the most part, it's the same girls," said Fay, "so we've been through the losses together. It's nice to share in the victories, too."
The No. 11 Mustangs — who won by scores of 21-25, 25-21, 25-20 and 25-9 and who will play for the outright title Saturday night against Life Pacific — added a vital piece in freshman Chloe Emory over the offseason. But the biggest shift for a team that returned 12 players came between the ears.
"A lot of it had to do with mindset," Fay said.
The Mustangs (26-5, 15-2 GSAC) began to believe they could win during an early nine-match winning streak, their confidence cemented after a road win at then-No. 14 Columbia College on the first day of September.
A packed house Friday saw that team — the one that reeled off 12 straight wins from Sept. 7 to Oct. 9 — show up some time in the night's second set.
Vanguard's Tobi Sanders and Kamelah Noel gave TMU fits in the opening frame, lifting the Lions to a tight win. But Master's soon hit its stride.
"We looked at the scoreboard and realized we were playing out of our minds," TMU libero McKenna Hafner said. "They weren't backing down, but we were just pushing harder and harder. We realized in that set that if we keep playing the way we were playing and didn't let up, it wouldn't come easy, but we'd get the win."
TMU trailed 13-11 in set two, but it proceeded to go on an 8-2 run capped by back-to-back kills from Emory, a player who's come through in numerous clutch moments throughout the season.
This one might not have topped the list, but it was up there.
Then Autumn Stevens leaped for a solo block to push the score to 23-19. Fay followed by banging a ball off two defenders and out of bounds. A Vanguard error sealed the set.
The Mustangs battled an old friend throughout the night. All season, they've served their opponents tough, forcing teams out of system and creating comfortable attacking opportunities of their own. But Friday, Master's struggled to keep its serves in bounds. It made 15 service errors, a season high.
"We told ourselves that if that part of our game was going to fall down a little bit, then everything else needed to pick it up," Hafner said. "So if we miss a serve, then our next pass will be perfect. We tried not to think about the things we were doing wrong and focus on what we were doing well."
Namely, hitting. Master's hit .579 in the deciding frame: 12 kills, one error, on 19 chances.
The stats reflected a team-wide confidence Hafner felt during serve and pass that afternoon.
"We walked into the gym and right away we had this energy that we sustained throughout the entire night," Hafner said. "That was lacking at Menlo."
At Menlo on Saturday the Mustangs fell in straight sets. In the days that followed the group rebuilt its confidence in practice and spent extra time watching film of the Lions. No one appeared more locked-in Friday than Regan Tate, who finished with a team-high 10 kills. When she whacked a ball to the floor to push TMU within one point of taking the match, she nearly fell over backwards, yelling toward the ceiling.
"She was awesome," setter Kayla Sims said of Tate. "Even if the set wasn't there, she got her feet to the ball and hit high hands and found court."
Tate wasn't the only key.
Emory finished with nine kills, as did Fay. Sarah Park and Sims each tallied 15 assists. And on Sims' sixth assist of the night, she moved into second place on TMU's all time list, passing Christy Swagerty's mark of 2,642.
Aubrey Bekendam holds the record with 3,202.
But even on a momentous night, as Sims and her team hunched over to run through the tunnel (it was a challenge for 6-foot-7 coach Allan Vince), there remained work to do.
The Mustangs likely need to beat Life Pacific on Saturday at TMU in order to clinch the title outright. Game time is 7 p.m.
"We want to do it to represent this institution well," Hafner said, "and show how hard we've been working. We don't want to give it up at the very end after a great season."
