W. Volleyball Loses Two More

The Harvard women’s volleyball team opened its season with a new young nucleus, a promising start and legitimate hopes of making noise in the Ivy League title race.

Now, the Crimson is barely whimpering.

The Crimson women’s volleyball team endured another rough weekend, dropping two 3-0 decisions to Ivy League rivals Penn and Princeton and extending the team’s losing streak to four games over two weeks.

With the sweep, Harvard’s overall season record dropped to the .500 mark for the first time this season (9-9), and the Crimson’s Ivy league record fell to 2-6 heading into next Friday’s match against Ivy rival Brown.

The Crimson hosted Penn at the MAC on Friday night, and the first game started out close.

The teams were tied at 13-13 early, and Harvard pulled within one later in the game at 28-27, but that was as close as Harvard would get to a win all night.

Penn went on to win that game 30-28, and follow it up by sweeping the next two games.

“Everyone had moments where they were great, but I don’t think anyone played really outstanding the whole weekend,” said freshman Pernilla Schweitzer.

Despite the loss, there were some standout performances for The Crimson. Senior co-captain Erin Denniston led all players in kills with 14, and the first-year tandem of Kaego Ogbechie and Schweitzer had 13 and 10 kills, respectively.

“Everyone did well at times, but our consistency wasn’t there for the whole match,” said junior Mariah Pospisil.

On Saturday night, the Crimson returned to the MAC to face Princeton.

This time, Harvard would never get close to a victory, as a strong Princeton team overwhelmed The Crimson from the start. The Tigers took the first game 30-20, and then the final two games by identical margins of 30-25.

“I don’t think its being nervous or going away or being home,” said Ogbechie. “It’s all on us. It’s a mental game right now.”

Against the Tigers, Schweitzer led the team with 12 kills and 13 digs, and co-captain Mindy Jellin added 43 assists. But their efforts were not enough to threaten Princeton, which earned a winning record in the Ivy League (4-3) with the victory.

“Physically, we’re really talented, but it takes more than that to win,” said Pospisil.