The road trip to Columbia and Cornell is dreaded by all Dartmouth teams, but the perils of the women's volleyball team over the weekend is one for the books. The Big Green wouldn't let the events get them down, and in fact, used them as a motivating factor in wins against the Lions and Big Red. The wins pushed Dartmouth's overall record to 11-6, and 2-1 in the Ivy League.
The Big Green arrived 15 minutes before their 7:00 p.m. match on Friday against Columbia, thanks to three hours of New York City traffic. But even after a 10-minute warm-up, the team came out on fire.
"We came out great," Coach Ann Marie Larese said. "Columbia looked sluggish."
Dartmouth jumped all over the Lions in the first two games, 15-6, 15-9. After the third game was taken Columbia, 10-15, the Big Green established an early lead in the fourth game, but match point after match point was whittled away by the Lions, who eventually came back to tie the game at 14-14.
But Danra Kazenski '99, a middle blocker not known for her serving prowess, stepped up, hitting two great serves to lead the team to victory.
"Those two serves were novel merely because they went in," Kazenski joked.
Getting into Ithaca at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the team was dead tired, but they came out ready to play for their 4:00 p.m. match. The only problem was that the Cornell coach wasn't quite ready to let them in the gym.
Unhappy that her team had lost to Harvard earlier in the day, the Cornell Coach had her team practicing up until an hour before game time, and wouldn't let the Dartmouth players in.
"Ann Marie was furious, which really got us fired up," outside hitter Janna Merryfield '00 said.
Cornell finished first in the league last year, and it took a total team effort to dominate the Big Red. Leading the way for Dartmouth was Alison McKinley '99, who averaged 19 kills and 17 digs on the weekend.
"Everybody picked it up," Larese said of the win in three games, 15-12, 15-13, 17-15.
Coming off a week where poor blocking was the pitfall for the Big Green, the Dartmouth front three made a strong showing.
"I was very impressed with the way our team was able to block this weekend. Blocking gave us the edge in the Cornell match," Anne Murray '00 said.
The Big Green began the trip playing at a disadvantage. Latia Curry '98 and Stasia Bochnowski '98 were unable to make the trip due to academic commitments, and Paige Perry '00 and Emily Ramee '00 were both sick.
Because the team was short-handed, Anne Murray '00 was moved into the middle, a position she hasn't played since high school.
"It's a lot quicker than my usual right side position," Murray said.
The change in locale didn't phase her, though, as she and Kazenski both registered seven blocks apiece for the two matches.
Cornell has 25 years of experience in women's volleyball, Dartmouth has three. Having never beaten Cornell, the win on the Big Red's own court gives the team confidence going into tomorrow night's match against the University of New Hampshire and two big home matches this weekend against the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
"Everything went wrong that could have possibly gone wrong," Merryfield said of the weekend.
But Larese emphasized the most important aspect of it all. "The volleyball part of the weekend went great. It's a great way to go into next weekend."
Kazenski added, "By absolutely punishing Cornell and Columbia this weekend, we're riding on an adrenaline high that will launch us into another incredible matchup this weekend."
