W. Volleyball Starts Slow, Takes Fourth in Ivies

Coming off a 2002 campaign in which Harvard challenged for the league title, it appeared that the Crimson might have had the momentum necessary to knock off two-time defending champion Penn.

But after junior outside hitter Kaego Ogbechie tore her patellar tendon, some of that anticipation shifted to worry as nobody knew when the 2002 Ivy League Player of the Year would return.

“It’s difficult to set that aside, your own personal problems, and just be a part of the team,” Ogbechie said at the beginning of the season. “It wouldn’t make sense for me to mope around and act like it was the end of the world. So I try to do my best.”

The Crimson experienced even more of a momentum-killer in its first weekend of action, dropping two five-game matches to Towson and Furman. After the Crimson dropped all three of its matches without taking a single game on the California road trip the following weekend, Harvard’s record sank to a disappointing 1-5.

The Crimson’s return to Cambridge failed to bring with it a victory, as Harvard fell behind early in each game before dropping the match to BC, 3-1.

“We’re sort of having trouble starting off strong this season,” senior middle blocker Mariah Pospisil said after the BC game. “We’re playing like a comeback team. It felt like we started playing when we were already down 10.”

With the first game of the Ivy play on the horizon, Ogbechie decided to tough out her injury and take the floor once again. With her return, the spark was back, as Ogbechie delivered 15 kills in the Crimson’s 3-1 victory over Dartmouth.

“You [could] see the smiles on everyone’s faces,” Ogbechie said after the Big Green match. “We just said that we needed a win and that [was] it.”

But with three more non-conference games on tap, Ogbechie returned to the bench to rest her injured knee. Harvard dropped all three matches—its final contests against non-Ivy opponents—and headed into Ivy play with a 2-9 record.

Once again, Ogbechie returned to the lineup against Dartmouth, looking to stop the Crimson’s losing streak. She tallied a game-high 21 kills and five blocks, while junior outside hitter Nilly Schweitzer recorded 16 kills and 17 digs, as Harvard won 3-1 to open up Ivy play with a 2-0 record.

The following weekend, the Crimson ventured off to New York, sweeping Columbia before falling to Cornell. Ogbechie skipped the match against the Lions, opting to rest her knee before starting and registering 15 kills against the Big Red.

Harvard headed into its matchup against Ivy frontrunners Penn and Princeton with a 3-1 mark in the league. The Crimson took a 2-1 lead over the Quakers, before dropping the fourth game 30-27 and the decisive fifth game 15-7.

Harvard took the Tigers to five games but dropped the final frame 15-9, prematurely ending any hopes of a playoff run.

“In the last game, we’ve just got to finish,” Harvard coach Jennifer Weiss said after the loss to Princeton. “We can’t let a team play at us, we have to play at them.”

The match against Princeton would mark Ogbechie’s final appearance of the season, as the Crimson’s elimination from contention made it unnecessary for her to play on one good leg.

Harvard took four of its next five—including two from Brown, one from Columbia and one from Yale—before dropping its final three contests of the season.

But the Crimson hardly faded. In the final game of the season, Harvard put together one of its best performances of the season against the Quakers in the Palestra.

The Crimson dropped a tight first game 31-29, but stormed back to take the second 30-26. The third and fourth frames followed the same pattern as Penn won 30-28 to take a 2-1 lead in the match only to have Harvard respond with a 30-26 game four win. But for the sixth time this season, the Crimson failed to capture the deciding fifth game, as it fell 15-11.

“It hurt to lose, but I don’t think we can be too upset with the game,” Schweitzer said after the loss to the Quakers.

The match against Penn was the final appearance for Harvard seniors Allison Bendush, Nathalie Miller, Amy Dildine and Pospisil. “The seniors are the heart and soul of the team in every way,” Schweitzer said. “Their attitude and work ethic have made Harvard volleyball what it is today.”

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.