Women's Spikers Go 1-2 at Tourney

The Harvard women's volleyball team suffered two losses against UConn and Hofstra, but managed to salvage at least some part of its weekend with a 3-1 win over Farleigh Dickinson.

The Crimson (5-3, 0-0 Ivy), fresh off a 3-0 thrashing of Canisius last weekend, found opponents of a slightly higher caliber at the Connecticut Tournament, a four-team round-robin affair hosted by UConn.

"Hofstra and UConn are pretty tough Division I teams," sophomore Lolita Lopez said. "We didn't play up to our capabilities and there are things that we can still work on."

Friday evening the Huskies rudely welcomed their guests from Cambridge by handing the Crimson spikers a 3-0 defeat. UConn, a perennial powerhouse, outmatched Harvard through all three sets and won easily, 15-4, 15-6, 15-8.

"UConn was by far the strongest team there," co-captain Jennifer Jose said.

"They [UConn] were a lot bigger than us," freshman Kate Nash said. "I think we were a little intimidated by them."

"Playing UConn was a good experience for us," junior Heather Rypkema said. "They had a strong block and a quick defense and we're not used to teams with both."

Harvard put up a stronger fight Saturday against Hofstra but could only manage to take the third set. Hofstra won the first, second and fourth set, 15-10, 15-12 and 15-5, respectively.

Saturday evening the Crimson recovered from its earlier setbacks to serve up a 15-5, 15-10, 11-15, 15-6, win against Dickinson, Sophomore Sarah Logan led the spikers with 16 kills in the final contest and Jose contributed two solo blocks and assisted on five others.

"We didn't know what to expect from them," Lopez said. "We wanted to get away with a win so we pushed to our potential."

The team looked at the weekend tournament as a tune-up for the squad's Ivy League season, which begins October 6-7 with games at Pennsylvania and Princeton, the defending Ancient Eight champion.

"We need to learn from these two losses and build for the rest of the season," Nash said.

The Crimson will get another chance to work out the kinks in its game Tuesday in the home opener against Holy Cross, a team Harvard defeated twice last season.

If all goes well for Harvard, by the time its Ivy foes roll around, the team will be peaking for what looks like a very promising season.