Women's Volleyball Faces Crucial Homestand Against Columbia, Cornell

With any eye towards capturing an Ivy League title for the second year in a row, the Harvard Women’s Volleyball team heads into its final homestand of the season with two critical conference games on its slate.

Although the Crimson (11-9, 7-3 Ivy) is sitting atop the Ancient Eight table for the time being, the squad is in a precarious position. With rivals Dartmouth, Yale, and Princeton all just one game behind Harvard in conference play with identical 6-4 league records, the Crimson’s cushion at the top is minimal. Each of the teams in the top half of the division has a shot to claim the conference championship over the next two weekends.

Coming off of a three game sweep at the hands of one of those other title contenders in the Tigers this past Saturday, Harvard looks to shake off any lingering disappointment and develop a killer edge moving forward.

“We needed to come in extremely focused and make sure we were ready to bounce back this week,” co-captain Caroline Holte said. “That mentality is just going to carry out through the week.”

The Crimson kicks off the weekend in a Friday night matchup against Cornell (6-14, 2-8) at the Malkin Athletic Center. Although the Big Red have trudged through the season with many contested league losses, the Ithaca contingent seems to have just come to life. Much of this adjustment can be attributed the electric play freshman outside hitter Carla Sganderlla, who, in her past two games alone, has recorded 42 kills and 36 digs.

After Cornell took Harvard to five sets in a loss earlier in the season, it is hoping that the recent stout play from its young players, like Sganderlla, can help the team finish the deal this time around. The Crimson understands that each game going forward will be hotly contested.

“Cornell is a fairly young team, and they really know how to be scrappy and fight until the end,” said sophomore outside hitter Paige Kebe. “They have consistently taken teams to five games, which shows us that we will have to fight for every point and out-hustle them.”

Harvard will play its last game of the season in Cambridge against Columbia (7-12, 5-5), to whom the Crimson previously lost in mid-October in a four-setter. In that Lions’ win, senior middle hitter Katarina Jovicic led the charge against Harvard on both ends of the floor en-route to tallying 10 kills and a career-high 4 solo blocks.

Jovicic, currently reigning as Ivy League Co-Player of the Week after another solid performance in her matches this past weekend, looks to continue her previous success against the Crimson with plodding, meticulous play.

This methodical pace of Columbia’s attack gave Harvard fits the first time around as it clashed with the Crimson’s preferred up-tempo style.

“Columbia has been tough for us in the past because one of our strengths is our quick tempo, and Columbia's offense is not quite as fast which definitely caught us off guard last time around,” Kebe said.

Harvard will look to adjust to Columbia’s style of play this time around in order to make the most of its second chance against the Lions. The veteran leaders on the team will be pivotal in accomplishing such a feat. Although not a captain nominally, senior libero Sindhu Vegesena offers four years of experience off of which younger players have an opportunity to grow.

“Sindhu … is constantly an emotional rock, which is extremely important for our team,” Holte said. “She always reminds us [of] our end goal in sight, and really knows how to inspire and motivate us. But what I think is amazing is that she couples that with her physical skill and her prowess on the court.”