Women's Volleyball: League leaders visit Dillon

For the women’s volleyball team, this weekend’s homestand could make or break its hopes of topping the Ivy League. The Tigers (11-6 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) will take on one of the best and one of the worst teams in the league, facing Yale (11-4, 5-0) on Friday and Brown (5-11, 1-4) on Saturday at Dillon Gymnasium.

Coming off a weekend split on the road against Columbia and Cornell, the Tigers currently hold a 4-1 Ivy record. After a strong opening league-play debut against rival Penn, the Tigers proceeded to fight through close matches with Harvard and Dartmouth. However, the Lions proved to be too strong an offensive force, ending the Tigers’ undefeated Ivy stint in a three-game match last Friday night.

The second-place Tigers are now looking to regain the top slot in Ivy standings, but it won’t be easy. They must first reckon with the Bulldogs, led by middle blocker Taylor Cramm.

Cramm, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Week, ranks second in the conference with a .392 hitting percentage. She hit an impressive .538 in matches against Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend without making a single attack error, and the Princeton defenders will have their work cut out for them if they hope to contain the Bulldogs’ 6’2” offensive force.

Junior right side hitter Jennifer Palmquist, however, said that the team remains undaunted. “Yale is a really strong team, but so are we,” she said. “We have been working hard, and we are looking forward to an exciting, challenging game.”

After the charged Yale matchup, the Tigers will take on Brown in what, on paper, is expected to be a fairly one-sided effort. The Bears have only won one match in the conference — a victory over winless Cornell, the only team with a worse record than the Bears’. However, a strong underclassman core including outside hitters Emma Pastore, Thea Derrough and rookie Maddie Lord should not be overlooked.

If they hope to pull off a sweep, the Tigers will be looking for a big weekend from the 2010 first-team All-Ivy duo of Cathyrn Quinn and Lydia Rudnick. Quinn, a senior middle blocker, leads the league in points per set with 4.33. Rudnick, a junior outside hitter, had one of her best weekends of the season in New York, averaging 16 kills in the Tigers’ two matches.

Rudnick also ranks second on the team with 3.35 kills per set and closed out the fourth and final set of the Cornell match with two successive kills. Her clutch performance late in sets will be essential for the Tigers to hang with a Yale team that has won four of its last five matches in just three games.

“I think going into this weekend with a sense of urgency and mental strength is going to be crucial,” Palmquist said. “Beyond that, we just need to focus on the basics and play our game to the best of our abilities.”

The Tigers will be looking to put this plan into action against the Bulldogs on Friday at 7 p.m. and against Brown on Saturday at 4 p.m.