The volleyball team held on Friday night in Leede Arena for a hard-fought upset victory against a strong Harvard University team that currently sits in second place in the Ancient Eight. After falling to Harvard (10-7, 5-3 Ivy) earlier in the season, the team pulled together to defeat its rival in five sets and obtain a 10-10 overall record and a 3-5 Ivy League record.
“Our offense was much better when we played them the second time than when we played them the first time,” Paige Caridi ’16 said. “We got our middles really active early in the set and that made a lot of one-on-one situations for our pin hitters.”
The Big Green came out firing and took the first two sets 25-23 and 25-17. It did not trail in the opening set and kills by Molly Kornfeind ’17 and co-captain Lucia Pohlman ’15 iced the set for the Big Green. In the second set, the teams traded points until they were tied at 16. The home team then went on a 9-1 run to win the set.
“I just wanted to come out and be really aggressive and defend our home court,” said Caridi, who had 16 kills and 11 digs in the game.
After dropping the next two sets 25-21 and 26-24, Dartmouth pulled it together and took the fifth set 15-10. In the fourth set, the Big Green was one point from ending the match, but a three straight kills from Harvard forced the fifth and decisive set.
“That’s kind of a trend this year for us,” Caridi said. “Whenever we do get two sets ahead somehow we usually drop the next two, but essentially we’re happy that we’re getting the wins out of those games.”
Including Friday’s showdown against Harvard, the team has played six five-set games already this season, winning the most recent three.
“I think the team is pretty comfortable now,” head coach Erin Lindsey said. “They know what we need to do, that we need to get a quick start.”
The Big Green did just that, taking an early 8-2 lead. The teams traded points and the Crimson got it to 12-9 and 13-10, but the set was never really in doubt. After slowing down slightly, the women hung on to take the final set and, with it, the game.
“It was a really great win to pick up because Harvard is a really strong team this year,” co-captain Elisa Scudder ’14 said.
The Crimson swept the Big Green in Cambridge earlier this season and the game marked the Big Green’s first against a team above them in the standings this season.
“We’re right there, we have the talent to really be competing with everybody,” Lindsey said. “It’s just a matter of executing consistently enough to put us in a position to win matches.”
Aside from executing its goals, Dartmouth used Harvard’s game plan against it in order to score.
“Harvard changed their blocking system to stick with our middle hitters which left a lot of holes for the outside hitters, and they just really took advantage of it,” Scudder said.
Offensively, Emily Astarita ’17 led the team with 17 kills, followed by Caridi’s 16, and Stacey Benton ’17 recorded 41 assists. Defensively, the team had a season-high 12 blocks, with six from Kaira Lujan ’16 and four from Scudder.
The win puts Dartmouth just one game behind the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University for third in the league. Both teams come to Hanover in the next couple weeks in what figure to be huge games.
“I think in the first half of Ivy we didn’t do as great as we had hoped,” Caridi said. “Now we have the chance to do it again.”
The team predicts it can win five of its seven remaining Ivy League games, but hopes to win them all.
“Obviously 7-0 would be ideal,” Caridi said, “but the Ivies are where everyone is very similar in skill, so loses can happen.”
Dartmouth volleyball has now won three of its last four games, all of which have been league contests.
“We’ve been having a lot of growth in the past few weeks,” Caridi said. “Everything that we’ve been working on since preseason is now starting to click with everyone.”
The team looks to keep this positive momentum going when they host league-leading Yale University on Friday at 7:00 p.m. and Brown on Saturday at 5:00 p.m.
