Women's Volleyball Goes Winless at New England Challenge

In this weekend’s New England Challenge, the Harvard women’s volleyball team dropped each of its three matches in straight sets.

“We had a lot of good moments throughout the weekend, but we just weren’t able to maintain that,” senior setter Beth Kinsella said. “We’d get on a short run, and then the other team would catch up, and then we’d lose control of the game.”

More bad news came when junior middle blocker Teresa Skelly sprained her ankle against Northeastern on Saturday, forcing freshman middle blocker Caroline Holte to step up for the Crimson. But since there was no fracture, Skelly will likely not be sidelined for an extended period.

BOSTON COLLEGE 3, HARVARD 0

Against Boston College (7-6, 1-0 ACC), Harvard (2-7) had a 9-7 lead in the first set, but the Eagles responded with five straight points and never relinquished the lead to win the first set, 25-18, at Northeastern’s Solomon Court.

In the second frame, a service error by Boston College tied the set at 18-18, but the Eagles finished on a 7-1 run to win the set, 25-19.

The first half of the third set was also back-and-forth, with the Crimson holding a 10-9 lead. But Boston College went on a 7-0 run and went on to win the frame, 25-17.

“One of the problems that we’ve been trying to hash out sort of in team discussions is why it is that we hold together with teams and then…we don’t have the strength to fight back after they get one run,” said captain and outside hitter Taylor Docter. “But I think that everybody’s aware of what needs to be fixed, and now it’s just a matter of putting in the work and the sacrifice to do it this week.”

Freshman outside hitter Kathleen Wallace and junior right side Erin Cooney each had eight kills for Harvard, and freshman setter Hannah Schmidt led the team with 10 digs.

NORTHEASTERN 3, HARVARD 0

Earlier on Saturday morning at the Solomon Court, the Crimson was swept by Northeastern, 25-17, 25-21, 25-17.

The Huskies (11-3) started to build a large lead around the halfway point of the first set and won it easily, 25-17.

In the second, Northeastern had a 6-5 lead but then went on an 11-2 run to take control of the set.

Harvard fought back and cut the lead to one at 21-20 off of an attack error from Northeastern, but still ended up losing the set, 25-21.

Northeastern had a comfortable lead for most of the third set and was able to close out the match with a 25-17 third set victory.

Wallace led the team with seven kills, while Docter had seven digs for the Crimson. Kinsella finished with 16 assists.

According to Docter, there were many things that went wrong this weekend, and Harvard just couldn’t make things work.

“[The matches] were all relatively similar; it was just honestly a really off weekend for us, and I think there’s a lot of things that we talked about that we need to work on in practice,” Docter said. “So many little things were just not being executed the way that they should that the whole system just kind of fell apart.”

UCONN 3, HARVARD 0

After a thrilling first-set loss to UConn (8-6) in its first game of the New England Challenge, the Crimson could not recover, falling, 3-0, on Friday evening in Storrs, Conn.

In the first set, a block by Cooney tied the score at 25-25 before Connecticut’s senior outside hitter Mattison Quayle earned two straight kills to take the set for Connecticut, 27-25.

After the back-and-forth first set, Harvard couldn’t keep pace with the Huskies in the second and third frames.

The Crimson never had the lead in either of the last two sets and ended up falling, 27-25, 25-17, 25-10.

Docter had 12 kills and 10 digs for Harvard, and Kinsella had 14 assists.

Despite the three losses, the Crimson plans to use these games as learning experiences as it prepares for Ivy League play.

“[These teams] are comparable to some of the teams that we’re gonna be playing in the Ivy League,” Kinsella said. “We obviously lost all three, but we just had a good discussion with our team about learning from the losses and those intangible things that we’re going to work on in practice this week to prepare for Ivy League play next weekend.”

Harvard is back in action on Tuesday night in its last tune-up at New Hampshire before conference play begins on Friday night at Dartmouth.

—Staff writer Denny Purcell can be reached at dpurcell@college.harvard.edu.