With Three-Set Victory, Women's Volleyball Joins Dartmouth Atop the Ivy League

The Harvard women’s volleyball team carried the weight of its Ivy League title hopes up to Hanover on Friday. A loss to Dartmouth would drop the squad two games back of the conference-leading Big Green with six games remaining, all but extinguishing conference championship aspirations. A win would ensure a share of the conference lead with a half-dozen games left.

The game in Leede Arena was far less dramatic than the buildup. And for the Crimson, that was a good thing.

Harvard (10-8,6-2 Ivy) took control of the game frOM the get-go and never let go, taking the match in straight sets and never letting Dartmouth (9-8, 6-2) eclipse 20 points in a single set.

“We knew that there was a lot on the line for that game,” co-captain Caroline Holte said. “We knew it was the game that would determine if we were back in the No. 1 spot…. But we didn’t focus on what was [at] stake.”

Harvard played one of its cleanest games of the season, tying its season-low in attack errors. The Big Green, on the other hand, recorded 25 Friday night. Three players recorded at least five on the day.

“Clean is actually a perfect word to describe it,” Holte said. “We actually use that word a lot in our huddles when we’re making too many unforced errors. We don’t try to play flashy volleyball; we try to play clean volleyball.”

The first set began as the first game of the series played out earlier in the year, with each team trading points equally. But with Harvard up 9-8, sophomore Paige Kebe helped push the team out to a big lead, delivering three kills in a 9-1 run to hand the Crimson a sizable lead. Dartmouth staged a run of its own to bring the game to 18-16, but kills from co-captain Caroline Holte, senior Kathleen Wallace, and junior Corie Bain kickstarted a 7-3 run to take the set.

Although she only registered three kills in her first game back from an ankle injury, freshman Christina Cornelius contributed an ace in the aforementioned run to get the team out to a 1-0 lead.

“I couldn’t do as much as I usually do because my ankle wasn’t 100 percent, so I had to let the game come to me,” Cornelius said. “Hopefully I’ll be good by next weekend.”

The second and third sets followed a similar pattern. When Harvard reached 10 points in each set, it led by two and was tied in these sets, respectively. But a 13-5 run in the second set and a 6-1 run in the third helped create distance between the Crimson and the Big Green that would prove to be an insurmountable lead.

With sophomore Caroline Labanowski still dealing with ailments of her own, freshman Jocelyn Meyer played a key role as middle blocker alongside Holte and Cornelius, registering six kills and a block on the night.

Coming into the game this week, Harvard brought in a strategy that was much more tailored to curtail the strengths of Dartmouth’s attack, which caused fits for the team in the first matchup. After recording 23 kills in the first matchup, junior Emily Astarita failed to have the same impact in the rematch, recording a team-high eight on the day.

“We watched five-minute segments on their big three key offensive players and we talked about how we could change our block and defensive back row,” Holte said. “Then we implemented it in practice and actually played through it…. I think that completely translated into how we played.”

Bain continued to be a driving force for the Crimson, coming one dig shy of recording her sixth double-double of the year. Wallace was another a key factor in the game, recording a team-high 10 kills after taking home Ivy League Player of the Week honors the weekend before.

With a Yale loss to Brown this past weekend, Harvard and Dartmouth are alone on top of the conference.

—Staff writer Kurt T. Bullard can be reached at kurt.bullard@thecrimson.com.