Women's Volleyball: Tigers 3-0 after more thrillers

The women’s volleyball team does not like living life on the edge. But that’s where it stands after beating both Harvard and Dartmouth over the weekend in tight 3-2 matches, their third straight five-game victory at Dillon Gymnasium.

On Friday night the Tigers (10-5 overall, 3-0 Ivy League) turned a 9-8 game in the deciding set into a 15-9 win, thanks to a series of attack errors from Harvard (7-5, 0-2) hitters. The next day against the Big Green (9-5, 1-2), a flurry of fifth-game kills from senior middle blocker and co-captain Cathryn Quinn and freshman middle blocker Nicole Kincade paved the way for a victory. With Princeton leading 12-11, the Tigers ripped off three straight points to win the match, highlighted by junior right side hitter Jennifer Palmquist’s pinpoint kill to the back left corner of the court.

Since the beginning of the Ivy League season, the Tigers have shown a flair for the dramatic. Penn, Harvard and Dartmouth, premiere conference challengers, all took Princeton to five sets, a streak that first-year head coach Sabrina King ’01 said cannot last.

“It’s terrible. It’s emotionally really tough on us,” King said. “This is the third game in a row that it has gone to five, and we have lucked out on all three of them, but our luck is going to end ... pretty soon.”

Quinn said she agreed with King’s ominous warning and hoped to see more consistency from the team.

“Volleyball is a game of chance a lot of times, and we can’t do that again,” Quinn said. “It takes too much out of us emotionally and physically.”

Though King has been unhappy with the tense endings, the excitement of the past three games has brought out larger crowds to Dillon than in previous years. King said that home-court advantage played a role in each of the three Ivy League wins, the first wins of her coaching career.

“We definitely got a huge lift from the crowd,” King said. “I think it really pushed us through in the fifth game.”

In both matches this weekend, the Tigers relied on a combination of veteran savvy and rookie talent. Upperclassmen shined in both matches, as senior libero Hillary Ford led the Tigers with 34 and 18 digs in each match, respectively. Quinn’s 22 kills led the team against Dartmouth, and junior outside hitter and co-captain Lydia Rudnick notched 20 kills over the weekend.

It was freshman outside hitter Sarah Hanna who led the team against Harvard, however, swinging for 16 kills and only one error. Freshman setter Ginny Willis also notched 49 and 58 assists in the two games, respectively, bringing her to a total of 478.

Add in Kincade — who had a number of big hits among her 14 kills against Dartmouth — and the Tigers find themselves with a promising group of players who will be around for the next few years.

Quinn singled out both Hanna and Kincade as having played exceptionally well against Dartmouth.

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“We have three freshmen on the court at almost all times,” Quinn said. “We need them, and they are working hard and doing great.”

Against Harvard, the Tigers jumped out to an early lead by taking the first two sets with relative ease by scores of 25-13 and 25-21. In the first set, Princeton tallied 17 points off of kills, including five from Palmquist. In the next set, Hanna smashed three straight kills to turn a 20-19 deficit into a win.

The Crimson battled back to take the third set, but Princeton looked in control while taking an 18-8 lead in the fourth. From there, Harvard scored 15 of the next 18 points and tied the match 2-2 with a 25-23 win. That comeback set up the nail-biting fifth set that fell the Tigers’ way.

On Saturday afternoon against Dartmouth, the two teams traded sets. Princeton took the first and third sets by scores of 25-19 and 25-17, while the Big Green won the second and fourth with 25-20 and 25-15 scores. The final, game-deciding point in the 15-11 fifth set came on a clutch solo block from Rudnick.

Next weekend, the Tigers face their first away Ivy League games at Columbia and Cornell. They return to Dillon in two weeks to face Yale, the only other 3-0 team in the league.