Crimson Edged by Yale, Shuts Out Brown

The Malkin Athletic Center was an eventful place this weekend.

During the two Harvard women’s volleyball games, a record was broken, one contest required overtime, another ended in a shutout, and a German accordion player performed the American national anthem on Saturday night.

For the crowd of almost 400 that gathered in the Malkin Athletic Center, both the American flag and the team’s veterans, in their last home game ever, provided reason to be proud on Senior Night.

Fittingly, Harvard’s (11-12, 7-5 Ivy) four four-year veterans contributed noteworthy performances against the Bears in a dominant 3-0 victory that came less than 24 hours after a 3-2 overtime loss to Yale.

Co-captain Chelsea Ono Horn and her fellow seniors Katherine Kocurek, Lily Durwood, and Alissa Flescher all made a mark in their final game at the MAC, contributing five kills, four aces, 30 assists, and six more kills, respectively, on Saturday.

Kocurek also made noise the night before, becoming Harvard’s all-time leader in digs.

HARVARD 3, BROWN 0

Brown (5-17, 1-10), the bottom feeder of the Ivy League, appeared to have the Crimson’s number at the start of the contest on Saturday.

Harvard stumbled to a 3-0 deficit out of the gate due to some jitters on defense in the back row.

Shifting back into gear, powerful kills from sophomore Anne Carroll Ingersoll and junior Mikaelle Comrie put the Crimson within striking distance of the lead at 8-7.

Brown held on to its slim advantage until Comrie blasted one through the block en route to tying the score at 18. Harvard took a late lead at 21-19 off of Brown attack errors and held on to grab a 25-22 victory.

After the previous night’s intense matchup with Yale, Harvard coach Jennifer Weiss was impressed to see her team maintain a strong tempo.

“To come in [Saturday] and be able to keep it up was wonderful,” Weiss said. ‘The seniors did great. All four of them had a wonderful career.”

Two seniors in particular showed off their veteran wiles in the second set. At 4-4, Durwood put the Crimson up 5-4 with a trick shot.

Later, Kocurek made a key one-handed dig to help boost Harvard’s 5-0 advantage at 19-14. Back-to-back aces from Kocurek put the crowd on its feet and closed out the second frame for the Crimson, 25-14.

Harvard received strong support from the bleachers all night, where a crowd of boisterous fans had gathered to celebrate senior night.

“The crowd amps us up,” Ono Horn said. “We always play well under pressure.”

Kocurek continued to baffle the Bears defense with her serving entering the third, contributing another ace during the early rounds of the frame.

Brown had trouble returning the serve all night, allowing Harvard to rack up 10 aces.

“We served aggressively [on Friday], and we continued to [Saturday],” Weiss said.

The Crimson maintained a healthy lead throughout the final frame in part thanks to the duo of Durwood and Ingersoll—the pair generated five kills off of just as many assists.

Providing an appropriate finish to the night, Flescher closed out the shutout 25-17 on a strike from the right that ricocheted off a Brown defender.

“You have to focus that much harder on the simple things, and they did a nice job,” Weiss said.

YALE 3, HARVARD 2

Two hours and two minutes of volleyball were decided by one point Friday night.

In a fifth-set overtime situation that seemed to be stretching into the length of a normal set, Yale’s Cat Dailey lined up and drove in a final kill to end the frame, 19-17, and give the Bulldogs (18-4, 8-3) a 3-2 victory.

Dailey’s kill—her third in overtime and 21st of the night—ended a long struggle in which Harvard nearly pulled off the upset of the second-ranked team in the Ancient Eight.

Four Crimson players, led by Comrie, hit for double-digit kills.

But Harvard’s defense was probably the most important factor that allowed the Crimson to keep pace with Yale.

Although Dailey and Yale’s Alexis Crusey both hit for more than 20 kills, Harvard’s block rejected plenty more. Relative to the Bulldog’s eight blocks, Harvard posted 15 blocks–nine of which came from Ingersoll.

“Some losses are better than some wins,” Ono Horn said. “That was a good loss.”

The Crimson wraps up Ivy League play next weekend with a two-game set against the “Killer P’s” tandem of Penn and Princeton.

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