Split Closes Out Season

For the Harvard women’s volleyball team, the last weekend of the fall proved to be exemplary of the entire season.

The Crimson’s final weekend of the 2008 campaign saw a resounding victory in one night juxtaposed with a characteristically hard-fought loss the next day.

Harvard (10-16, 5-9 Ivy) crushed Columbia (6-18, 0-14) on Friday in a 3-0 shutout that featured double-digit kills from three different players. Continuing its New York road trip the next day, the Crimson again thrived off of a number of offensive performances, but ultimately fell to Cornell (10-15, 9-5) in the fifth frame.

In the final weekend for seniors Laura Mays, Anna Rachlin, and Kathryn McKinley, McKinley helped lead the Crimson’s offensive efforts. She leaves the court after contributing 975 kills over four years.

CORNELL 3, HARVARD 2

Harvard’s hopes for consecutive wins in the season’s final weekend transformed into fears of a shutout two frames into the game (25-21, 25-19, 21-25, 22-25, 15-9). The Crimson started slowly and could not establish a strong offensive presence on the court due to numerous errors throughout the initial frames.

However, Harvard remained resilient, redoubling its efforts following the break between the second and third matches.

“We regrouped and said ‘we didn’t come in eight hours to lose in three,’” junior co-captain Lily Durwood said.

With the score 5-7 in the third, a 6-2 Harvard run opened the game up and forced a Cornell timeout. The Big Red came back strong, but the Crimson used kills from McKinley, Mays, and sophomore Mikaelle Comrie to maintain the pace and hold onto the lead. At 25-21, junior Alissa Flesher nailed a kill to end the game as well as the chance of a shutout.

Flesher repeated the act to start out the fourth frame, which saw constant back-and-forth action. Working off of attack errors, the Big Red threatened to take the lead several times, but lost its momentum to service errors. Taking advantage of Cornell’s faulty play, Harvard utilized kills from freshman Anne Carroll Ingersoll, McKinley, and Flesher to force a fifth game.

Cornell came back to life in the fifth, leaping out to a 9-1 lead. Out of sync at 11-4, the Crimson gained some stability from junior Chelsea Ono Horn’s steady serving, which allowed Comrie to knock down three consecutive kills as part of a 6-1 run. Within three at 12-9, Harvard ran out of momentum. The next three points went the Big Red’s way to end the game, 15-9.

HARVARD 3, COLUMBIA 0

Following last week’s heartbreaking back-to-back 3-2 losses to Princeton and Penn, Crimson coach Jen Weiss and the rest of the team were ready for a change of pace.

And that’s what the Crimson did to Columbia (26-24, 25-17, 25-19). In its final victory of the season, Harvard put forth an offensive display that paved a new road through the Levien Gymnasium. Led by Comrie, Flesher, and McKinley, the Crimson averaged a .393 attack percentage in its 3-0 shutout of the Lions.

Although Columbia outplayed the Crimson at the net by posting seven blocks compared with Harvard’s three, many more would have been necessary to stop the Crimson’s offensive assault. Harvard boasted more kills, 45 to 33, more assists, 44 to 32, and fewer errors, 10 to 16.

Although the final numbers strongly favored the Crimson, early play did not. In the first frame, Columbia constructed an 18-9 lead off sloppy Harvard play in what appeared to be a blowout match. Ending a 7-0 Columbia streak, McKinley slammed down a kill to return the serve to the Crimson.

From there, the squad mounted a comeback that featured an ace from freshman Christine Wu and an assortment of kills from the aggressive trio of Flesher, Comrie, and McKinley. At 24-21, the three led a 5-0 run to rob the Lions of the first stanza.

“We hit our stride,” Durwood said.

It was smooth sailing for the Crimson following the first game.

—Staff writer Emmett Kistler can be reached at ekistler@fas.harvard.edu.